Did you know that some of the most successful companies were born in times of severe economic downturn? 

Here are some that you may be familiar with:

  • Thomas Edison launched General Electric right as the world was heading into The Panic of 1893
  • The Disney Brothers started the first Disney company in the 1920’s  just as the Great Depression came upon them
  • Trader Joe’s launched in the Recession of 1958
  • Microsoft started at the onslaught of the 1973 oil crisis and stock market crash
  • Google and Salesforce launched right before the dotcom bubble burst in the early 2000’s
  • Uber got going in 2009 right after the 2008 stock market crash
  • Netflix started in 1997 at the start of a worldwide financial crisis 

During our last Friedman/Doorcounts webinar, Grabbing Sales by the Roots, we polled our audience. We asked a couple of questions about how things are going for them, in this new “normal”. [By the way, if you haven’t had a chance yet, check out the webinar Doorcounts hosted with Friedman, entitled “Opening in the NEW NORMAL-equipping your staff to handle the change.” ]

 

  1. What percentage of “Normal” are you currently operating at? 

Answer 1: 40-60%: 30.4% said they were operating at 40-60%

Answer 2: 60-80%: 56.5% said they were operating at 60-80%

Answer 3: 80-100%: 13.0% said they were operating at 80-100%

Looks like 56.5% of our retailers that were on that webinar are back up and running at 60-80% of their normal capacity. 

  1. What concerns you most about reopening?

Answer 1: Customer openness to the New Normal 39.1%

Answer 2: Employee openness to the New Normal 39.1%

Answer 3: Making the right decisions about how/when to open 4.3%

Answer 4: Something else 17.4%

Employee and customer openness look like they are top of mind, receiving 39.1% each of webinar attendee votes.

  1. Do you know what your current conversion rate is?

Answer 1: Yes 21.7% 

Answer 2: No 78.3% 

78.3% do not know what their current conversion rate is. One of the things we say at Doorcounts is, “What gets measured gets improved.” Just knowing what your conversion rate is will improve performance among your employees. PSST!!… Check out this video on our new website where we address this very subject!

  1. If you do track conversion rate, do you track individual along with store conversion rate? 

Answer 1: Yes 56.5% 

Answer 2: No 43.5% 

This is good news. If attendees did track conversion, they tracked individual sales reps’ conversion as well! It’s important for employees to know how they rank among their peers, as well as overall.

We would love to hear what you’re doing to make Q3 a successful comeback. What are you struggling with? Is there anything Doorcounts or The Friedman Group to help you transition back?