The stock market is down 30% in just 22 days. The consulting business pipeline is “on-hold.” You have been stuck home for days, if not weeks. You don’t need to be reminded that things are not looking good. However, when we look back at history, we are reassured that life will get good again. It is not a matter of “if,” but only “when.” The Wall Street Journal cites how the world came back after 6 disasters.* We will overcome this. In the meantime, we still have to keep on living, which for us consultants means we have to continue with business development activities and invest in ourselves and our business infrastructures. You will need to be on top of the latest information in the market, and figure out new channels for meeting prospects now that your go-to networking event has been canceled. Your service offering might need a tweak or even a major pivot, as some industries may never be the same again.
If you work for a larger company, you are able to talk with your manager and co-workers to discuss these issues and get feedback. As a small consulting firm owner, you have limited access to information and fewer people to brainstorm with.
This is where CoSolo can help. Since the beginning, CoSolo was built to replicate the benefits of having co-workers 100% virtually; it is a COVID-19 proof solution. Our community of consultants supports one another in good times and bad times. We have daily “focus” hours where we work together and keep each other on task, weekly team meetings where we discuss how to address various business challenges, daily happy hours and much more.
This is also a good time to join us, as we are beginning our new term in 2 weeks. Don’t be alone. Join our community of consultants so we can overcome this challenge together. To join, please sign-up here.
March 24 mini-happy-hour. I promise, we have more female members. :)
❗️COVID-19 Resources for Consultants In our members-only Slack community, our members engage regularly to discuss and share knowledge. Ideas, tools, resources, and the like are circulated on an ongoing basis. During these trying times, our members have been extremely helpful in sharing resources pertaining to COVID-19 and its effect on independent consultants. Hopefully, the following resources are as helpful to you as they have been for our members. 💸Small Business Administration (SBA) Coronavirus Relief Loan: Details here on how to apply and qualify for the SBA coronavirus relief loan. For a step by step tutorial click here. Major caveat: The SBA will provide financial assistance only to businesses that are otherwise unable to secure loan funding. For those of you in NY, "Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city would provide relief for small businesses across NYC seeing a reduction in revenue due to COVID-19. Businesses with fewer than 100 employees and whose sales decreased by 25% or more are eligible for zero-interest loans. Learn more about this significant resource here." 🗣Helpful Guidance: Some additional advice on how to ensure the health of your business during these tough times. 5 minute read. 🗽NYC United Against Coronavirus: Here is a loaded Google doc with all sorts of useful links for support.
🤝Accepting Applications for Spring 2020
There is no other better time to join CoSolo than right now. We are currently accepting applications for our new Spring Term which begins the first week of April. If you are serious about building your independent/boutique consulting business and you think it will be beneficial to have other fellow consultants advise and hold you accountable, join us~ You can join risk-free for one month. Please sign-up here.
See what some of our members have to say: "I met my partner at CoSolo, and we closed multiple 5 figure deals.” -David Gritz, Startup Consultant "CoSolo offers great value. I get high-quality business coaching for less than $50 per week. You can't get that anywhere else." -Michael Feyen, Organizational Psychologist
🌟Member Spotlight For a break away from all the craziness, let’s give a round of applause to Alex Sharpe and Deepak Lalwani for being in this month’s Member Spotlight. Alex was recently interviewed by Gordon Adelsberg about the need for executable strategy. Check out the quick and interesting read here. Deepak talks about the importance of company structure in an article that analyzes how organizational structure is fundamental to any company despite how it has changed over the years. Thanks for providing us with useful insight guys, keep it up! Fellow CoSolo Members, have you been featured or quoted in any published work recently? Do you have any original content that you’d like included in our newsletter? If so and you’d like it to be shared with the wider community (no shame for self-promotion here!) please email it to staff@cosolo.co.
*Lessons from 6 disasters https://www.wsj.com/articles/lessons-for-the-coronavirus-crisis-from-six-other-disasters-11584719497