We have arrived at the third marker!!! And, we’re all desperate to get back into life! Come on! Who wouldn’t be?

Restrictions are easing off enough for businesses of most shapes and sizes to re-open doors and start looking to the future. Many pubs, clubs, cafes and restaurants are re-opening. Office workers are being phased back into their office premises. Roads are again crowded.

Up until now, it’s been about: supporting our teams, getting our business ‘house’ in order and exploring what our business should look like in the post COVID-19 world.

In my first article of this series, I outlined the 5 markers along the road to recovery, we should look out for:

1.    Communities temporarily settled, uneasy calm.

2.    Restrictions start to lift.

3.    Business tries to restart, tentatively.

4.    Business pace accelerates.

5.    ‘New normal’.

Many businesses are now trying to re-open, indicating clearly that we are now at the third marker.

It’s time to get testing…seriously!

It’s time to get serious about refining, testing and locking in our our post COVID-19 business ideas.

In my second article of the series, I outlined the process of creating, consolidating and refining a Big Great Ideas List. If you haven’t progressed far on a Big Great Ideas List, it might be worth going back and working through the stages.

If you have your list, it’s time to push on into serious testing of your short listed ideas and key steps in implementing your potential new game plan.

5 ways to test your post COVID-19 business ideas.

Here are 5 ways to test your great ideas.

1.    With your team. Testing in the first instance with your broader team is a quick way to get feedback, especially from those closest to the action. Get them involved.

2.    With customers. Put it out there with existing customers or clients. We have offered our new ideas free during our testing period and in return, simply asked for feedback.

3.    By analysing others. Find out who else has tried anything close to your idea and getting a sense of how it’s gone. It might even be in a different industry or market. Compare and contrast their situation with yours. How are they going? What is similar in your business situation that would lead you to believe it will work for you? What is different about your business that makes you think it might go better, worse or the same?

4.    With potential new customers. Reach out to the new market and find opportunities to demonstrate your new initiative and ask for feedback.

5.    With credible experts. Find a network that is connected to the market your new big idea seeks to serve. Go to the network and get their feedback and better still, negotiate a way to go to the network base for feedback.

Another approach would be traditional market research. The issue here is timing and cost.

It’s getting urgent…!

Time is ticking by. Lockdown restrictions are easing more quickly than expected and the pace is accelerating. It will not be long before every business will be back full-throttle trying to make a new way in the post COVID-19 world. You want to be ahead of the wave. Don’t you?

So, what now?

1.    Get onto your Big Great Ideas List, if you haven’t already.

2.    Start testing, refining and locking in the ideas you will run with.

Further action on some resources:

• My original article on LinkedIn here.
• Resources - If you would like the extended versions of articles with more detailed on the processes and with prompting, provocative questions to get you thinking, please let me know in the comments. Also go to the Resources Page for templates and checklists developed for our business and our clients, such as: a post-COVID-19 Change Impacts List, SWOT analysis and more. No charge. No sign up.
• Feedback - please let me know your thoughts. Please leave a comment below.
• Follow - if you would like to continue following me through this journey, please make sure you follow Leadership Resources Company Page or click through to Contact Us and leave your contact details.
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Michael Lin is Lead Consultant at Leadership Resources Consulting Group.