Business Basics with Lane Merrifield | Coronavirus Update April 27

April 27, 2020 quick update

April 27 Topic: Throw out your old playbook and get back to business basics with Lane Merrifield

• Lane Merrifield is the newest “dragon” to join CBC’s hit show Dragon’s Den and is one of Canada’s leading tech entrepreneurs. He is the founder of Club Penguin, which is the largest children’s online social network. At age 28, he sold it to Disney for $350 million, and, as their youngest executive vice president, turned it into a billion-dollar brand. 

• Most recently, Lane is the founder of Wheelhouse, an organization that invests in and supports early-stage tech companies and entrepreneurs through mentorship, access to capital, and connections to global business networks.

• I went on snowboarding trip at the beginning of March prior to the lockdown in Canada. The only requirement of participants was that they had not traveled outside of Canada and he hadn’t travelled anywhere so all was good to go forward. Halfway through the trip a guest was evacuated for coming down with what appeared to be Coronavirus. Turns out he had travelled to Angola prior and didn’t think Coronavirus was serious. The whole group left and self isolated at home. Two days later I showed systems thankfully no hospitalization was needed but it was much worse than the flu. I still only feel partway recovered and it’s been a month. 

• One of my hobbies is that I am a private pilot and when you learn to fly you learn how important it is to remain calm amid turmoil and how to assess the situation and then pour your energy into whatever it is you can control.

• This is very relevant to the situation we are all facing right now. We cannot control all of it but we should be identifying what we can do and place our energy there rather than worry or fear. 

• Also, understanding that when life goes back to normal it will be a new normal. You need to let go of what you knew before and use both critical and creative thinking to make predictions about the new normal and how to adjust your business strategy. 

• • Empathy, trust, and relationships are the key foundations

  • The greatest business trait that any entrepreneur and business owner  can have is empathy for their team and customers. The ability to put yourself mentally into the shoes of someone else allows you to better respond to them be it by creating great products or services that they need or by seeing cultural differences amongst your team and resolving them before they turn into an issue. 

  • Even if you had your customer’s trust prior to COVID-19 you will need to work on rebuilding that trust because the environment right now is one of mistrust and fear. It’s about perceptions, so customers need to perceive you and your business as one that cares about their safety and health.

  • Now is the time to build on and leverage old and new relationships 

• Your customers are your community and you need to find tools that you can use to keep the community knit together

• That’s really the key when it comes to community, how you keep it knit together

• Nurture the community and be consistent. So if your community is online don’t just set up your profile and call it done, continue to post and engage with others. 

• Post a free tutorial that teaches your community something simple that they can do on their own that you have expertise in

• Partner with other businesses and promote each other through tagging on Instagram or other social media sites. 

• “Fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful” - Warren Buffett

• Now is the time to build a strong foundation and grow your footprint in meaningful ways so that you become their go to person when things open up

• Lane:

• • First thing I would look at is marketing. H

    ow did I market in the past and rebrand

    to market yourself as the safest carpet cleaner to show empathy and respond to customer fear. 

  • Next I would look at retrofitting some tools or maybe renovating a truck and forecast the new reality

• Alexa:

• • I would first look at areas of the business that are bleeding but really focus on what can I do that my competitors aren’t.

  • I would look at introducing a new service geared specifically at sanitation or safety so if I was a carpet cleaner, I would start a rug pickup drop off service where I would come pick up your rug clean and disinfect and then drop it off. 

• Right now I would look at the owner’s strategy to COVID-19 response and would be looking for those business owners that have lots of ideas with a clear hypothesis about the new normal and what they can do now and after the restrictions are lifted. 

• I go where everyone else goes for recommendations, my network and then online reviews

• If there are no reviews this is a red flag and turn off

• All business listings online need to be completely filled out with accurate information. Nothing is worse than a phone number that ends up being a fax number. 

• Local forums or Facebook groups are great places to offer advice utilizing your expertise and include a simple ask back that if they found this helpful to like your facebook page and become a part of your community

• Film yourself doing simple repairs in your own home and post on Youtube and then post on social media to check out your video

• How I Built This

  Podcast

• Joe Rogan

  Podcast

• Don’t expect that it will all go back to normal as you knew it otherwise you will be behind

• Abandon the notion of going back and start from scratch with the perspective to understand how your business will fit and what opportunities will exist that you can go after

• It’s easy to spin in frustration but the way that you breed creativity is through space and time so give yourself time and space and freedom to take a couple of days and just brainstorm as if you were starting your business from scratch today