After one year of the COVID-19 outbreak, what have we learned?
Our CEO, Colin Yong is one of the 3 representatives to join Trinity42’s Survival is Profit workshop series along side City Coin Lab and Espressolab.
The live and replay chat on Facebook and Youtube is over an hour long so it might be a little hard for you to sit through and watch the entire thing. If you’re a fan of Jadi Batek or in a similar business industry as us and is curious on the discussed topics during this chat, read on for the summary that Colin had discussed during the live!
How did the lockdown and pandemic the past year has affected your business?
At first we thought it was a problem limited online within the China borders but when the Malaysian border closed down, we were greatly impacted by the lost of tourist customers. As we closed down during the MCO lockdown last year, our staffs had to adapt by doing Facebook lives with basic pay only. My main two concerns were protecting our staffs from the virus and honestly, the business’ cash flow – paying rentals, salary and more.
When Jadi Batek has lost its main customers, how did you change to stand up again from your downfall?
First of all, we accepted the reality that tourists may not be back soon. So I focused on 2 things for the business, the first one is to reduce cost. I had to let go of some staffs such as our part timers and contractors. Our permanent staff now are multi-tasker who has to clean and sweep the floor, wipe the surface, etc. Secondly, we had to find a new market to replace the tourist market. So I quickly set up an e-commerce to penetrate our products into the online business setting. Moreover, we developed products that are relevant in this situation such as Batik facemasks which is a solution to replace disposable face mask as well as D-I-Y Batik coloring sets as an activity to do with families at home.
With a developing online market presence, we could reach customers abroad as well with online orders from international waters. Although our results are not comparable to before, there are promising improvements.
As a business owner that has gone through the pandemic and survived it, what do you advise others?
One advise I can share to others is to have a strong branding. Last time I didn’t think it was important and that was a mistake I have made. With a strong brand with more followers, my audience and market is more reachable and they are more engaging with the brand.
QnA: May I know what training that Jadi Batek provide to your staff to get better on selling and serving customer during pandemic?
Well, my sales staff do face to face selling. So with the pandemic, they had to change to social media engagement like Facebook live where you talk to a phone awkwardly at first. Its all trial and error. In the beginning when I asked them to do Facebook live, they were shy and so I took the lead and hosted a live myself, setting an example as a leader for others to follow. Most importantly, be sincere like how you would talk to friends.
Watch the entire discussion to find out more on how Jadi Batek, City Coin Lab and Espressolab persevered through COVID-19 and the changes they had to made and how they coped as well.
