By Tom Greenwood
Now that things are starting up again, I look back at where we were as a company at the beginning of this year and where we are now….my have things changed!
When the world changed, we were all very uncertain and very concerned what the mandatory lock-downs would mean for the business and ultimately our team. I made the decision at the time to not lay off any employees as there was enough suffering and pain caused by other companies to people’s lives. I just did not want to be a part of, nor did I want our team and their families to be fearful about their livelihood. Albeit, the idea of everyone working from home, having numerous video calls and no more in-person collaboration was very concerning, however, I had to NOT let my anxiety get the best of me.
Instead, we would take the time and look internally on how we could Change, Transform and Grow to come out of this better, stronger and more focused for our clients.
We focused our efforts on getting ready to do whatever we could to help support the SMBs, that we are all very passionate about, to get through these incredibly tough times.
We focused on putting new programs in place for entrepreneurs to utilize our teams as their team to get back up and driving revenue without having to incur the sometimes suffocating costs of hiring a full staff. We also worked on new and innovative pricing plans to help these same struggling companies to successfully expand into new markets that will drive new revenue with guaranteed results. We realized and embraced the harsh reality that some companies will just not make it and we had to come up with a corporate ‘Pay it Forward’ strategy; to find investors/buyers to offer an alternative to shutting the doors of these companies so people remain employed and continue to provide for their families.
We worked long hours, dealt with multiple changes in direction, all the while assuring the team that we will be OK and the world will get back to normal…someday.
Then, something magical happened. The realization struck me of how truly lucky I am as a business owner to have such a great team, such a passionate team, such a focused team of originals who all want to do whatever we can to help in a small way to make this world a better place. The challenges and virtual collaboration tested our team and in fact pushed us all to become more aligned and effective.
As a result, our team is now much closer, more understanding and more charged up because we all survived during an unconventional, uncertain time. As a small business owner, I couldn’t be more proud of the Evolve team and what we stand for. I can safely say we are well fired up and ready to take on the rest of 2020!