{"id":13475,"date":"2020-03-27T06:41:24","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T11:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=13475"},"modified":"2020-03-27T09:09:47","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T14:09:47","slug":"the-best-things-you-can-do-for-local-businesses-in-light-of-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2020\/03\/the-best-things-you-can-do-for-local-businesses-in-light-of-covid-19.html","title":{"rendered":"The best things you can do for local businesses in light of coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Social<\/a>

Social distancing is making shopping tricky, where in-person shopping is still allowed.\u00a0Photo (CC) by Guido van Nispen<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Monica Bailey of Rock Port, Missouri, sent in this question that I think you can relate to:<\/p>\n

Thank you ladies, as always, for supporting small towns! My question is super generic but it is giving me sleepless nights. I am our counties economic\/community development director and I\u2019ve been scrambling to support our small businesses during this crisis. What\u2019s the most helpful thing I can be doing for them right now??<\/p>\n

Take care!
\nMonica<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a great question. While there’s no one right answer, we are hearing lots of suggestions. And we’re making up a few of our own. I’ll have a more complete answer on this later, but right now here are my thoughts,\u00a0in order of importance by my guesstimate:<\/p>\n

1. Get in touch with each and every business.<\/h2>\n
    \n
  • How are they doing?<\/li>\n
  • What have they changed?<\/li>\n
  • Where do they know they need help right now?<\/li>\n
  • Who’s hiring?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    2. Get the word out.<\/h2>\n
      \n
    • Share what businesses and services are available now, what’s different, what’s still the same, what jobs are open.<\/li>\n
    • Use every channel available to you.<\/li>\n
    • Enlist others to spread the word.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      3. Listen for community projects and activities that you can amplify.<\/h2>\n
        \n
      • Share stories of anyone doing anything positive, anything people can join in on safely.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        4. Answer as many of the assistance program surveys and questionnaires as possible.<\/h2>\n
          \n
        • Get more businesses to, as well.<\/li>\n
        • The longer this goes on, the more of these will come out. Many of them help determine how much money gets allocated where.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

          5. For businesses that are closed or downsized, help them transition.<\/h2>\n
            \n
          • What’s next for them?<\/li>\n
          • What’s next for the space they occupied?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

            6. Play matchmaker.<\/h2>\n
              \n
            • Help businesses that are downsizing to combine with one another to share space or share resources, safely.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

              7. Fill empty spaces with cheerful things to look at.<\/h2>\n
                \n
              • Start filling empty business windows with art of any kind.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

                8. Start preparing for rebuilding.<\/h2>\n
                  \n
                • Look for the small spaces and the shared spaces that will help the tiny new startups take root.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

                  Bonus: Don’t do any of these alone.<\/h2>\n
                    \n
                  • There’s a whole community of people out there who want to help. Give them small but meaningful ways to participate, spread the word and cheer each other on.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

                    Monica wrote back to say she’s already doing 1, 2 and 4, so I’m sure you’re on the right track too.<\/p>\n

                    What are you trying in your community?<\/h1>\n

                    Hit reply or answer in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                      Monica Bailey of Rock Port, Missouri, sent in this question that I think you can relate to: Thank you ladies, as always, for supporting small towns! My question is super generic but it is giving me sleepless nights. I am our counties economic\/community development director and I\u2019ve been scrambling to support our small businesses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":13478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3,8,37],"tags":[75,65,555,551,550,160,88,159,553,42,157,104,552,48,554,32],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/COVID19-shopping-sign-social-distancing-by-CCby-Guido-van-Nispen.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13475"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13483,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13475\/revisions\/13483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}