COVID 19 Working From Home
Here is an interview between Dotty and Chuck at Alignable.
When COVID 19 hit, many people got laid off, furloughed, or started working remotely from home.
Hello and welcome to the Small Business Coronavirus Diaries. I’m Chuck Casto. I’m joined by Dotty Scott who’s in Vancouver Washington. Dotty, thank you so much for joining us today.
Thanks for having me.
Tell us a little bit about your business and how you’ve been able to get through, day by day this coronavirus threat.
So my business is Premium Websites. I build websites for small business owners. I actually have been working from home for 15 years. The work from home portion really hasn’t affected me mentally like it has some people. As far as changes, we’ve been locked down, restaurants closed for a couple of weeks. The normal day-to-day activities have been very different, going to the grocery store and waiting in line to get into the door was different.
Today’s the first day that we’ve actually been told that all non-essential businesses have to close. So moving forward, what is essential?Everybody’s working through all of that but my business has pretty much stayed the same structurally as it was but last 15 years.
Has COVID-19 shut down your business?
Well, there’s a silver lining there. You’re all about being online. So have you actually heard from more people, or reached out to more people who may not have much of an online presence and all of a sudden they need one?
Well, every day I’ve been calling three to four of my clients to find out how they’re faring. Just to check in with them to see what’s going on. See what they need. Some of them might have the potential of membership sites to move online. So I’ve been shifting my focus a little bit to seeing how I can help people create a membership site for them and walk through what that looks like and how they can start using video conferencing like we’re using right now, or some other methods to allow them to provide their services online.
Well, so that’s been a shift for me. Do you feel that after the threat is over and we start feeling a recovery, do you feel that maybe you’re in a position to grow your business even at that point.
Yes, and I’m actually really hoping that people look at this experience as a catalyst for the future. Driving around here normally is waiting in traffic for two hours to get somewhere. And the last few weeks, it’s been wonderful. We can go anywhere in 10 minutes. So, how can we move forward after this and keep that same feeling. Less traffic, less cars on the road, less pollution. Move Online as a permanent condition. Not have the commuting we had before. Even if we can get a portion of the businesses that are forced to do it now, to remain with remote employees that are working from home and cut down on the environmental pollution. So I really hope that this moves forward into the future.
Wow, that is a great perspective and I know some people have already been saying a few things like that in Italy. You know where the Dolphins had been returning to places they haven’t been to in decades.So yes, I totally understand that and that’s a great perspective. Finally. Let me just ask you what you would advise to other people who may not be in a Hot Zone at this point. If they end up in a Hot Zone, what should they keep in mind?
Here’s what I have been advising all of my customers. I think this is good advice for anybody, whether you’re in a hot zone or not. Whenever your business slows down, take that time to work on your own business. So do your own marketing.
In fact, next week, what I’m going to be doing is catching up on updating my own website, since I’m always building other people’s websites. You don’t mind always suffers. So I’m gonna you know, update my portfolio make it current put some new offerings on there. I purchased a new contact management system that is going to help me with all of the automating of my marketing and I’m going to get all of that figured out.
Are there programs that you can implement in your business that you need the time to learn and you’ve been putting it off, now’s the time to do that. If you’ve been thinking about, how to automate this little process so that I don’t have to do it over and over and over again. Now’s the time to figure that out. Reach out to people that have already done it to help you. So that’s what I’ve been advising my customers.
I want to, leave everybody with a question that I want you to ask yourself all. Because if we constantly ask ourselves things that are negative then that goes into our brain, right? So here’s the question.
What does a crisis situation make possible for you?
Just keep asking yourself that question and your subconscious is going to come up with an answer that’s going to be something that you may have never even thought of.
That is great advice to leave us on. Dotty, thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you for having me. Have a wonderful day.
