Two general categories of businesses have been hit hard by the coronavirus shutdown: services and non-essential products.

In the first case, while it’s regrettably the case that some small businesses might not survive, many services professionals can weather the storm if they get creative. In the second case, your storefront may be gone, but your business doesn’t have to be. Chances are, your business is already online to some degree. Now’s the time to go all in on e-commerce.

How can you survive, you ask? Simple. Take a lesson from creators.

A third industry that has been hit very hard is entertainment. Performers who make the majority of their income from productions and performances are, on the surface, totally screwed. Think about it. If you depend on a bunch of people crowding into a bar, concert hall, theater, studio or arena, what do you do?

You get creative, or you starve!

So let’s take a look at what creators are doing.

Musicians, especially independent musicians, are doing live-streaming, direct selling of digital content and Patreon-based (or similar) fundraising with special perks. And they’re also creating new content and recording at home. Thanks to modern technology, at least if you live in a relatively quiet building or house, you can produce near studio quality for a fraction of what studio recordings used to cost, and you can definitely do recordings with a “live” feeling.

Comedians are doing online comedy or talk shows, for free, to engage with a fan base (that might in turn buy merchandise), or through third party ad-supported channels (and, when possible, taking a cut of the advertising revenue or getting a small commission from the platform). All they need to engage their audience is a laptop with a decent quality camera and mic and a web-sharing tool with recording capability.

Actors and performers are doing podcasts to stay relevant with their fan base, and some are using that to promote books or merchandise they have for sale. Post offices and delivery companies are still delivering.
In other words, while they have all lost their major income streams and often must perform from home, they haven’t given up — and neither should you!

If you can’t keep your small business going through the shutdown, you can at least keep going and maintain your relevance and be ready to be the first to recover when you can re-open and get back on track to normalcy.

So how do you do that?

Read the full article over on Spend Matters to find out!