BREAKING: Coronavirus and lot services don't mix.
"Thank you Captain Obvious", right?
As a 20 year provider of on-the-lot services and technology for lot services providers we've seen many challenges since our inception in 1999: economic contractions, recessions, bull markets, stock market peaks and valleys, and everything in between. But this is different. This is Coronavirus. And it changed everything, quickly.
This pandemic delivered high velocity change for all lot services providers and dealership customers across the entire country in literally weeks. Between March 20th and April 1st approximately 44 US states essentially shut down all automotive retail sales. 44.
Today one must navigate a "high velocity change" environment across leadership, financial, legal, HR / personnel, customer service, and sales / marketing channels. The bigger you are the more complicated these mitigation efforts can be week-to-week. The smaller you are the quicker this new (temporary) economic landscape can deliver hardship.
This email is a proactive outreach campaign to all lot services providers nationwide to share resources that may help you as individual businesses and lot services leaders to navigate this "high velocity change" environment. This content will help you assess and plan for the next six weeks, and we plan to share additional information and resources in future campaigns as well on different topics.
Coronavirus Data for Decision Makers
Coronavirus is now known to be active in over 200 countries around the world and in all 50 US states with varying levels of severity. Coronavirus response has been swift by federal, state, and local governments, and predicting how long containment efforts will continue in any given geographic area is incredibly difficult today.
While the modern news media and/or social media are the primary source of breaking news and information for many people in times like these, we recommend leadership seeks out un-biased (politically), authoritative sources of data about this virus, its spread, and individual State containment efforts that impact your business and dealerships in your markets. Utilizing authoritative sources of data will help you balance the more emotional heuristics present in modern media and social media in order to reach better conclusions using all available data.
Not only should you seek and use sources of information that are accurate and reliable simply so you are aware of what's happening in your home state(s), but knowledge of the bordering States will help you assess what your state's leadership may "do next". Furthermore, and most importantly, everyone is wondering when "things will get back to normal" again and business can resume.
Here is a brief list of some web sites you may want to consider:
Twitter Resources
Love Twitter or hate it, we have found certain Twitter feeds from authoritative sources to be incredibly insightful, and many are a reliable source of "up to the minute" updates.
State Departments of Health: following your local State's department of health account delivers daily updates about the virus in your home territory. For example, @OHdeptofhealth (Ohio's Department of Health) is a particularly good example of a helpful day-to-day resource for businesses.
@V2019N (Covid19) is an independent account posting information globally about the virus and its spread.
There are many other feeds across social media from authoritative sources you may value.
Conclusion
In future emails we will provide additional resources across a range of topics including finance, HR, legal, customer service, and specifically about "rebooting" after the pandemic. We hope this email has been helpful and insightful for you at this difficult time.
Soon, this pandemic and the containment efforts implemented by US States will ease. Over the past 48-hours in China, the city of Wuhan where this global pandemic originated in December 2019 lifted its own "stay-at-home" / travel ban after 76 days. Today (April 8th) Chinese citizens were able to leave the city for the first time since the movement ban was implemented in late January.
This pandemic will end. But Americans likely have another four to six weeks, depending on your exact business location in the US, before signs of "returning to normal" will be prevalent. Hang in there and keep pounding one week at a time!