At the writing of this article, there are more than 4,000 cases of coronavirus confirmed in the United States. The World Health Organization denounced the outbreak due to the coronavirus (which originated in Wuhan, China, in December) that causes a respiratory disease known as COVID-19 to be a pandemic on March 11. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency two days later! Dear Readers, what does any of this mean for our livelihoods?
Dear Readers welcome back to the JMS blog! Thanks for all your emails voicing concerns and asking for our advice. As a crisis management firm in Philadelphia, the JMS team is all too familiar with the panic you all feel. Worst, with clients spread across the Northeast corridor (Washington D.C. to Boston), the JMS team has been operating on overdrive. It was impossible to tend to this blog last week. But, with New Rochelle being the closest epicenter to Philadelphia (about 100 miles away), the JMS team has received strict directives to work remotely from March 16ththrough March 30th. Consequently, the JMS team will create a special edition series to discuss the different stages of crisis management you must account for as you are fighting to keep your family safe.
The key to effectively managing a crisis is to be reactive. Otherwise, inaction will be the death of you!
This global pandemic, however scary it may be, will not be the death of us. We’ve all heard the social distancing guidelines we must abide by for now, but it does not mean that this is the end of the world as we know it. Even though it seems that we are at a standstill, as stores are adopting modified operating hours and the toilet paper shortage is absolutely out of control!
By being reactive, this blog is not talking about engaging in the full-blown panic fests seen everywhere on the internet. No, Dear Readers, this blog invites you to adopt the JMS crisis management two-phase framework:
Phase one: implement a short-term plan of attack to bring order in a destabilized world. Establish a new schedule for your family.
Whether you are working remotely, having school-aged children at home, and worrying about elderly relatives scattered around the nation is a lot to deal with at once. But you got this, Dear Readers!
Phase two: plan your recovery strategy right now to mitigate the extent of the likely economic setback that will impact how businesses and local communities will start operating later this spring.
Waiting in agony while hoping that everything will go back to normal is not a sustainable option since there are already talks of recession. Please don’t worry just yet, Dear Readers! The takeaway should be the fact that recovery does not happen unless you have a plan. So, Dear Readers, come back this week to read the tricks of the trade in all things regarding crisis management that the JMS team will share to help you navigate this new normal we are seeing unfold across the U.S.
There you have it, Dear Readers! Thank you for stopping by our blog today. As always, we want to hear from you! What are you doing to face this growing outbreak? How are you settling with this new normal since President Trump announced the U.S. two-week national emergency to combat coronavirus last Friday? Tell us all about it in the comment section below, by email at jms@branding24seven.com, or by mail at:
JMStrategy LLC
21 S. 11th Street, 2nd Floor, Philadelphia, PA, 19107.
Dear Readers, please stay safe, take all the precautions you need to protect your families and keep your spirits up…. We shall overcome this!
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