Hi Kally,
I hope you and your family are well and healthy during this horrible pandemic period. Myself isn’t doing so well. I’m not sick but I’m so stressed everyday that I am going to make myself sick. I’m so stressed out over the possibility of losing my business to Covid-19.
For the last five years, I have owned a small music production studio and I am doing bakery lessons over weekends and lull period.
In December, my partner wanted to back out from our studio due to personal reasons. I let him cash out his share which I used part of the mortgage from my house. My bakery lessons was picking up during the holiday seasons and I was doing 3 lessons per day everyday so I decided to close the studio for a while until I can find another partner to take over the other half of the business.
As you now know what happen, the pandemic ruined my plans for 2020. My studio is still shut while I’m paying rental every month. Students stopped coming during lockdown restrictions and I couldn’t do any bakery lessons. I am not earning any income at all since March until now. I still have my house mortgage to pay off. Luckily, my wife is still working with a stable monthly income. It is not a lot but it will get us through the bills and groceries. If she loses her job, we are going down. We have no savings to call upon. Whatever we had before in the bank was to pay the renovations of our home and to start the music production business.
All these worries, it has started to affect my health. I couldn’t sleep at all, my appetite dropped and an old back injury returned.
What else can I do? Please help.
With blessings, John E.
Hi John,
I’m so sorry to hear that you are not doing so well. This pandemic has everyone worrying about their health and future. People worried about keeping their jobs while business owners like yourself worried about staying afloat.
Firstly, have you seek any financial assistance from the government in your area / country? I know plenty of governments are doling out financial aid for folks like you to sustain their businesses as well as personal relief aids to cover mortgages and put food on the table.
Depending which country you are in, I’d say go to your government websites and do a little research. Applications like aids usually will take some time before it is granted and released to you. So it’s better to get it started now.
Next, let’s do something about your studio. During this lockdown, I’m afraid there may not be a way for you to reopen your studio for any kind of music production businesses however, there are still ways to earn some bits of income.
A good example is to rent your studio out to people who need storage places. Or even a temporary quarantine place away from their family members who may be living under the same roof. (Just make sure you engage a professional cleaning company to sanitise the place when the lease is up.)
If your studio is in a good central location, it will be attractive for its accessibility. Typically now that it is hard to travel anywhere far. Desperate times calls for creativity. You can even rent out on a short term basis just to make sure you cover rental.
Now for your bakery lessons, since your students can’t come to you, why not bring the lessons to them? Ask your regular students to sign up for an online course hosted by you. You can stream yourself live baking cakes and cookies. Or record your lessons and sell them online. The best part is that after your online lessons, you can sell your bakery goods around the neighbourhood to share some joy and earn some extra cash as well. Every cent counts, right?
Lastly, this may sound almost impossible but you need to remain positive. These may be hard times but we humans are ingenious and resilient. We will find a way out of this difficult situation. Don’t let negativity get in the way of creativity. The business landscape has already shifted and a lot of businesses are cracking their heads to shift their operations online. The earlier you embrace this change, the sooner you’ll bounce back with great ideas of your own.
Best of luck and let me know how it goes. If you need someone to brainstorm with you, just drop me an email again anytime.
Regards, Kally
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