This is the first part of a three-part series of posts. This article focuses on the practical steps we can take in our daily lives and in our business during the coronavirus event.
Part Two invites you to consider how this event can aid us in discovering what is truly important in our lives as we take the big picture perspective and discover compassion and our greater unity as Human Beings.
Part Three will address the deeper, spiritual significance of this event and how you can view it from an IGI perspective that will help you navigate these chaotic times and evolve to experience more goodness in all aspects of your life.
Right now, everyone is getting bombarded with messages about the Coronavirus as we all hunker down in our homes and wait out this storm. In this message, I would like to share the perspective that I am taking for myself, my family, and my clients, and how you can take a wider perspective of this event in your personal and professional life. These are some tips that can help your business during the coronavirus.
The IGI Principles
As all of California has been ordered to stay at home, I am in the process of finishing my new book called The IGI Principles: The Power of Inviting Good In vs Edging Good Out. I am very excited to share it with the world and expect it to be released in the next month or two.
This book is the culmination of a lifetime of work in both the fields of business and in my spiritual path, resulting in the term IGI, or Inviting God In. IGI is the exact opposite of the word ego and represents the power of inviting God, goodness, or whatever you call the higher power, into your life rather than edging God out through selfishness and fear.
All things in our lives can be informed by this idea of IGI, and the current situation is no exception. This pandemic is an opportunity to learn to invite more goodness into your life and to see how you can turn crisis into opportunity, lead into gold. I’m keeping that perspective for myself, my family and friends, and my clients. I believe that this is a perspective that can greatly benefit yourself, your business or organization, and the world as a whole which needs level-headed people who meet this situation with Spiritual Intelligence.
Here is my new website where you can find more information about the new book and how to order it so you receive a copy when it is released. Until then, expect more blog posts and messages from me containing simple and practical IGI Principles for you to apply in your own life.
Guiding Your Business Through These Times
This virus is having a major impact on our work lives and businesses. While it is impossible to stop this pandemic from harming your business completely, there are many things that you can do to minimize the damage. If you use this situation intelligently, you can even come out at the end of this crisis having evolved in your business beyond what you could have if everything had continued as before.
There is nothing in life that is inherently negative and can’t be transformed into a positive outcome. Many who look at the virus see it as a disastrous worldwide pandemic that destroys our health and our wealth. But what if we look at it another way? What if we see what it can teach us, how it can improve our lives, and possibly even aid our business in becoming more profitable than ever?
People still need services, help, and guidance – and in fact, these things are needed now more than ever. Even though many people are taking a step back from their daily lives, the world must continue moving forward. We have the financial economy and the health economy and clearly at this time the health economy needs to overtake and take precedent over the financial economy. However, you still need to keep your businesses viable and running. You still need to keep paying your rent or your mortgage and your bills to take care of your family.
While the world is collectively retreating to their homes to ride out this storm, this is the perfect time for you to creatively utilize your talents and your skills to reinvent, remodify, and repurpose how you communicate and how you provide your services to your customers.
This may take the form of offering some new menu of services that may take some new pricing models, it may take reaching out to your customers and finding out what it is they want now and what they don’t want. In this time where many are being careful with their spending, you can find out what they’re willing to pay for what they’re not willing to pay for.
One important thing is to make sure that you are taking all the prudent things that can be done to protect your employees. This may mean that they work from home and take appropriate sick time or paid vacation. You may need to figure out what compensation plans you have for people who are going to be affected by this.
This pandemic can be a good opportunity to modify your business model during the coronavirus and perhaps increase your utilization of the internet and social media. You can connect with your clients and customers through video blogs and messages, emails, blog posts, and social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube among others to reach out to those whom you haven’t been reaching out to as authentically and as clearly and consistently as you could have.
At this time, many people are staying home and have a lot of time on their hands, so this is a great time to produce content and get it out to your audience or customers to drive engagement and sales. This is also a wonderful opportunity to share with them how you can be of value and service to them and what your unique selling proposition is that might be of value in this time of need.
This could be a time you decide that paying it forward and giving some of your services out for the greater good in a way that you would not normally do is the right thing to do. You’re being generous and figuring out how to give it to the people who need it the most.
Or maybe, you can look into reducing some of your pricing for a while so that people can utilize these products and services for the benefit of the world economy. You may take a loss right now in your profits, but in the long run, people will remember you as a business who did the right thing and helped out when times were tough.
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These are just a few of many suggestions for ways you can meet this challenging situation in your business or work life and successfully navigate through the stormy times we currently find ourselves in. By applying these principles and those we will discuss in Part Two and Three, you will better be able to stay in the eye of the storm where all is calm and clear.
