{"id":1208,"date":"2021-01-04T16:34:18","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T16:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foundationpr.co.uk\/?p=1208"},"modified":"2021-01-04T16:34:18","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T16:34:18","slug":"keep-on-keeping-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foundationpr.co.uk\/index.php\/2021\/01\/04\/keep-on-keeping-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep on keeping on"},"content":{"rendered":"

2020 was quite the year wasn\u2019t it? One nobody will forget. Least of all anyone in business. If your business has survived, even close to intact, I think you can give yourself a massive pat on the back. Pour a cold one (maybe not if you\u2019re reading this at 8:30am), kick off your shoes (more likely trainers or slippers than high heels or brogues) and congratulate yourself. You made it.<\/em><\/p>\n

But as the new year dawns, now is not the time to slack off. We are not through this yet. Still more hard yards to cover. And if we get through this, surely we can emerge stronger and brighter and happier and, if we are lucky, as friends with the bank manager.<\/p>\n

I learned a lot about my business in 2020. Hell, I learned a lot about myself. I also learned who my friends are – not always the people I thought they would be. Mostly I learned that you need to keep on keeping on, in four ways:<\/p>\n

keep going<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t stop. Don\u2019t give up. Don\u2019t think \u201cis it worth it?\u201d I worked every day of the pandemic. Even if there wasn\u2019t that much work to do in March with most of our clients closed at first. I worked on the business instead of in it. We made\u00a0a point of staying visible even in the hardest of lockdowns and social media is a game changer here. Traffic on sites like Linkedin surged and, because ad revenue dropped, it was easier to get a bigger bang for your buck there. The same applied to our clients (all building industry based). Those that stayed open throughout, even though business dropped off a cliff in March, have recovered faster, and recovered stronger. So keep going. Don\u2019t be dispirited.<\/p>\n

keep changing<\/strong><\/p>\n

My business looks nothing like it did in March when, stupidly, I flew off on holiday, only to get locked down in a hotel in Tenerife. Not as much fun as it sounds trust me, but that\u2019s another story! I have different clients. I offer different services. I collaborate with different people. Change is always scary but the pandemic has forced businesses to make changes that probably needed making anyway. I like the new normal. It\u2019s exciting and challenging and change keeps us all young.<\/p>\n

keep learning<\/strong><\/p>\n

One thing hard lockdown taught me is that I still have a lot to learn. New skills, new technologies. I learned completely new skills that have become new service offerings. I attended my industry body\u2019s technical webinars because a girl can never know too much about hinges. Hell I even did a few short Open University courses! That learning has already stood me in good stead. I intend to develop this process in 2021. It seems you\u00a0can<\/em>\u00a0teach an old dog new tricks.<\/p>\n

keep connected<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the joys of lockdown and the whole working from home thing has been, for me, the re-emergence of the telephone to make an old-fashioned call. Hearing another voice was so important and helped to found, cement, and grow relationships. Of course video conference calls were also a boon \u2013 though I am sick and tired of looking at myself. I certainly haven\u2019t missed the many thousands of business miles I usually do but I am looking forward to going to a proper meeting and shaking my clients\u2019 hands. Once again, social media played a big part here. The chance to just drop a \u201chey how are you?\u201d message to people on Facebook or WhatsApp was a godsend and once again gave me a chance to keep my business visible, stay open. Many clients who had fought shy of social media before now embraced it in the pandemic because it gives them a brilliant channel to communicate 24\/7 with customers whether they were on site, in their office or their back bedroom, or even on furlough.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to ask about how we use social media and digital marketing to help keep our building industry customers open, visible and growing, or even if you\u2019d just like a chat, give me a call. I can tell you all about lockdown in Tenerife!<\/p>\n

call: 07932 332331 or email: hello@foundationpr.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2020 was quite the year wasn\u2019t it? One nobody will forget. Least of all anyone in business. If your business has survived, even close to intact, I think you can give yourself a massive pat on the back. Pour a cold one (maybe not if…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foundationpr.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foundationpr.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foundationpr.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foundationpr.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foundationpr.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1208"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/foundationpr.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1231,"href":"https:\/\/foundationpr.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208\/revisions\/1231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foundationpr.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foundationpr.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foundationpr.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}