Combating the loss of business in lockdown

With the Taranaki Home and Lifestyle Expo cancelled due to coronavirus, some businesses have been left feeling the loss of missing out on meeting prospective clients.

One company impacted is Vision Living, a Waitara-based glass and aluminium company.

The expo was its biggest marketing and networking event of the year.

Every year the company runs a $1000 giveaway that sees around 150 entrants from the expo, 20 per cent of which are usually looking to carry out projects within the next four months.

To combat this, they will run the giveaway online to try and cover some of their losses.

‘‘We’re hoping to give someone a chance to win a bit of a boost during this time but also mitigating some of the loss we are experiencing in building new sales leads,’’ office manager Olivia Sweeney said.

The giveaway will be run from their Facebook and Instagram with the winner drawn on Wednesday.

While the country is in alert level 4 lockdown, all businesses other than essential services must close.

Sweeney said this had seen revenue completely stop but the company still had overheads to pay.

However, its has used the opportunity of being closed to re-evaluate how it operates.

‘‘We’ve looked at the bigger picture and created some fresh new plans, product ideas, all that brainstorming and housework that you don’t get to do.

‘‘We have tried to use this time to work on the business rather than in the business,’’ Sweeney said.

The business is looking at how it can operate when the country moves into alert level 3, however it could still impact its ability to get certain products for jobs.

But it is trying to be as proactive as possible by looking at new services it can offer in a changing landscape and the way people work.

‘‘We’re making sure we have the products ready for the jobs that we can go back to but it is dependent on getting some product from other regions.

‘‘People are looking at the way they do business in the future to overcome any struggles like this.’’