SMALL BUSINESS and corona - Freeper Entrepreneurs, post your experiences

[Garth Tater]

With forty years of small business experience in West Virginia if there is one thing I know about it's how to go broke. Not that going broke is hard, the trick is to position yourself to get back up off the floor when conditions improve.

My basic strategy for when times get bad:

1. Accept it. You ARE going out of business. Don't waste your resources trying to keep a doomed business afloat. Every dollar you spend now is a dollar you won't have when it comes time to start up again. Get rid of all your expenses and work as a one man operation out of your garage.

2. Keep your phone number, that should be the very last thing you give up. When you start back up the phone number will show you or your business's name when you start cold calling your old clients. A new number won't show a name and most people won't answer when you call if they don't see a name they know.

3. Try to maintain your online presence but don't spend any money on it, i.e. put your time in on your facebook page but don't pay for any web development or spend money on ANY marketing expenses - when business dries up it's gone and a fancy email campaign ain't gonna bring it back.

4. Donate your time and skills to worthy causes. You're not going to be making any money sitting at home, so it's not like you're going to be out any money doing a little repair work around the animal shelter. People WILL notice and YOU will be the one they call when times improve.

5. There's always some money to be made somewhere so spend some time sniffing it out. And be FLEXIBLE. "Yeah, I can do that," should always be on the tip of your tongue.

You're good at building things, right? How are you at tearing things down? People are worried about germs? Do you have a steam cleaner?

6. Forget your old wage scale. There will be 10 times the number of contractors looking for every little job that comes along - you may be the best but when times are bad people only have the money to pay the cheapest.

7. Don't give up.

Good luck

[gogeo]

I own and operate a black car business. Sedans, limos, a minibus. Cancellations started coming in, no bookings. Another operator estimated last week was 50% down, this week 75%. My results are similar.

I've laid off 80% of my chauffeurs and moved one to on-call. I'm idling 75% of my fleet, canceling cell phones, etc. I can literally cover the schedule myself. I'm hearing stories of airplanes with 15 passengers.

I don't know if it's enough.