4 subtle lessons I learned from the Covid pandemic
We were all be flattered by the ugly success
I have few friends who were quite successful from fashions before the COVID pandemic. They all have stores to do business from fashion or coffee or restaurants.
Consequently, my friends are more likely to spend more time enjoying their victory that comes from average effort and hidden luck. They are proud of themself for what they have done and compared to anybody who is still struggling or has a lower income than themself.
Moreover, they didn’t give a try to learn many new things to upgrade their businesses. Even a friend of mine is still using paper to write all the sales day by day. She doesn’t have any data from customers to analyze and get insight into her customers. Writing each sale on a note is risky and hard to summarize. Once in a while, a staff even cheat to steal money from selling products without taking note.
But that was considered as bad luck that happened once in a while.
Actually, what she needed is a software sale report worth less than twice as much as one of her drunken parties but it would give a huge improvement to solve many problems from operation to data.
Luck comes easy and will easily go.
The country’s economy was rising and there were so many benefits from government policy to protect local businesses or native people still loved to support each other. They haven’t recognized all favorable conditions granted for a period. And the period lasted until last year. Those hidden lucks vanished.
They did not expect that one day a virus that would spread through the air can lockdown and damage the whole economy to its core.
A big fall of revenue started and the repeated loss of cash that makes them painful, stuck, and lost trust in anyone around. They spend more time hanging out to blame the COVID for their failure and remind each other of old glorious days.
They were looking for other friends who were struggling as them to share and ease their inner resentments.
The eroded effort could not save the day.
However, they believe what skills or methods or the average effort that brought them success before is still the best and suits this time.
After 5 years of experience in starting an F&B business with 2 years in co-founding a startup for Marketing, I truly have deep sympathy toward my friends and the feeling of being isolated through the dark time. I have submitted many solutions like expanding to digital distribution, improving marketing strategy, and optimizing Facebook ads campaigns …
When you have outlets as one of the distribution channels, you will have much to pay for rental fees. You need to be smarter and leverage digital marketing to support it. You can not just sit there and look at your beautiful products and wish customers will spontaneously come.
Few had been listened to or halfway executed due to their eroded effort. They feel suspicious about new methods and try them with little force.
Sometimes I hope I can assist them more except to fulfill the energy and courage inside them. Sincerely, I suggested temporarily closing their offline stores to save cash for the future after analyzing and writing down a business plan for them. That was such a hard suggestion from me and that was more an unimaginable decision for them.
Belated cognition along with expensive lesson
Month after month without much income, all their saving money is deprived slowly until empty. Debts certainly appear. Few friends of mine are even broke. The only solution which gives them the feeling of losing is closing their stores.
However, why don’t we regard it as a withdrawal?
A story I learned from a famous scholar. An injured tiger must always be aware and learn about his pain and weakness. He needs to fall back to his cave and cure the wound by licking and cleaning repeatedly. This is because the tiger understood clearly from natural instinct that no one else could heal himself better.
If he continues the hunt, he could get killed by another stronger predator.
We as humans are not much different. The sooner we accept the reality the faster we will recover from the mud. The longer we persist in the past the deeper we sink.
Another great friend who used to be my client during my marketing startup faced the same trouble as most people by the time the pandemic started. All the solutions were attempted with his best effort that helped him keep most of his assets.
However, when the second wave of pandemic rose, he swiftly decided to close his store last October and save an amount of money.
Let’s go of the ego.
After taking a breath, he started a new plan for online business and learn new skills. At the moment, he moves on to new experiences ahead with more practical aspirations.
We find it not difficult to meet and realize all unfavorable changes in our life. On the other hand, we are often consumed by emotional ego and really painful to accept those.
I hope my 4 lessons can lighten someone else outside the world through this troublesome period. Several waves of success can not define our brief life’s meaning, withdrawals from low times can not define our life as a failure result.
Don’t you agree? Have you ever been through any of these lessons as mine?
