While stay at home orders have increasingly impacted the ability of local Jacksonville businesses to make money, they're unlikely to be lifted any time soon. Some are hoping for a swift resolution and quick return to normal, but this type of unfounded optimism can be dangerous if it fails to prepare you for the reality that is coming.
Estimates from the United Kingdom's top colleges suggest that waves of infection outbreak will continue for as much as the next two years. Our best hope for a quicker resolution will require a vaccine is rapidly developed, and the soonest we can realistically hope for that will be in about 18 months from now. At worst, we'll probably be close to herd immunity in two years - but that means a lot of people will be dead, too.
How will your business survive? It is clear now that many of them won't. The economy we have on the other side of this will be radically different from the economy we started with. Small and medium sized firms of all types will be radically disrupted and many partners, suppliers, and customers won't be there anymore when the dust settles. Even if your business does survive, the ecosystem it existed in will be forever altered.
One tactic for retaining sales figures is to increase the focus on online conversions. After all, if your customers are anywhere right now, it's probably online. Increased internet sales may help to offset a reduction in sales at a physical location, but it will still be subject to the pressures caused by reduced consumer spending, lost wages, and general economic uncertainty.
Not all businesses can adjust to an online presence as the primary form of sales, but those that do so successfully will have a huge edge against those local Jacksonville businesses that don't.
And if your business absolutely cannot adapt to a new world of social distancing and intermittent stay at home orders, it might be time to think about shifting gears and setting up a new spin off that does.
While we won't be locked up inside our own homes forever, there's no old normal to go back to.
