DELIVERING IDEAS TO EMPOWER TODAY’S BUSINESS OWNER

This is Kevin O’Leary, chairman of O-Shares, CNBC contributor and small business investor. I’m here to share some useful tips and advice to empower the Spectrum Business community.
 

COMMUNICATION IS KEY

What are the best practices to recover out of this pandemic? Well, let’s think about that. Number one, who’s most important? Your customers. You’ve got to communicate with your customers constantly telling them, A) you’re in business; B) you want to support them; and C) you’re there for them. They need to know you’re still out there. That’s crucial.

 
Let me give you an example. You know I’ve got a lot of different businesses I’m an investor in. One of them that’s been crucial for me is in the wine industry. It’s a multimillion dollar business. Now there’s been chaos in that industry because most of our product is sold in restaurants; or it’s sold in liquor stores or wine boutiques. We went online. We went to every social media platform we could and let our customers know that they could buy the wine directly from us online. We thought maybe 3 or 4 or 5% would respond, 60% went online! Turns out people like to drink. Whoa! Is that news!  There’s a digital transformation going on in America and you as a small business have to be part of it. So get to work on that.

 

Number Two: your employees. It’s been brutal on them. Let’s face it.  Sometimes you’ve let them go, sometimes you’ve brought them back, you’ve furloughed them. They don’t know what’s happening any better than anybody else, you need to communicate with them as well. Particularly the ones that you’re going to need long term. They’re basically part of the DNA of your business. Communications is crucial.

 

Constantly letting them know, and I’ll tell you something that’s important that I’ve learned, don’t BS them. Give them the cold hard truth. They need to know that. They need to trust the information from you isn’t sugar-coated. They have to know exactly what’s going on.  You’ll find it gets very sticky if there’s trust there. Don’t lie to them.

 

Thanks for watching. For more of my small business tips and advice go to SpectrumBusinessInsights.com.

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