Hi, folks. I hope you are all safe and healthy, and continuing to practice shelter in place, until this terrible crisis to our health system, our economic system, and most importantly – every one of our human lives, subsides or is eradicated.
Over the past two weeks, we have worked tirelessly to ensure that we’re doing what we do best. Communicating.
Below, I’ll be detailing three ways that we’ve adjusted out business operations to meet the needs of, ot only our valued clients, but assisted in the efforts of the local and regional community, so that we can do our part in eradicating the need to reference “Coronavirus” and “COVID-19” from our daily conversations. Because one day, we’ll have beaten it.
Board of Rockland County
- On March 16th, 2020 – we sent a newsletter out to every one of our 200+ clients, letting them know that we will install a free popup on the home page of their websites, and will update that message for free until 3/31/2020, so that they in turn could prepare their clients for a shift in their store hours, in their procedures, and other elements related to their core operations. We also suggested including several resources, such as the COVID19 guides from the CDC, New York State, and New Jersey State.
It’s a small step, but those 200 websites handle tens of thousands of visits on a daily basis (a very conservative estimate). They provide services, products, and most importantly at this time – education.
We’ve decided to extend this offer to people who are not our customers – but have a WordPress website that requires that they update their information – yet their web developer is nowhere to be found. We’ve quickly gotten the process down to a science (15 minutes, tops), because we have 13 years of experience managing websites.
There is no obligation. There is no payment requirement, or need to continue working with us after this crisis subsides. It is simply putting our talents forth, and letting the rest happen naturally.
If you are reading this, and would like some advice or guidance on how to get your message out to the general public in a very quick but logical manner, please contact us. We will handle requests on a first-come, first serve basis, but as long as we have the ability to log into the website(s) in question, we should be able to handle up to 32 requests per day. This is based on our team’s current availability.
We will offer this for the next two weeks, as a pilot program. - We have been working very closely with local Rockland Business leaders and organizations, notably the Workforce Development Board of Rockland County, on which I have the privelege of serving as a member of the 20+ member board.
Each Friday, we are now holding “Small Business #FridayForums” via Zoom, which give us a platform to transmit vital information to the webinar participants each week on topics such as Disaster Assistance Loans from the Small Business Administration, local donation efforts from retail businesses and community groups, and clarification of NYS-related policies.
On the last item, an example of the usefulness of these webinars occurred last week, when we were able to quelch the false rumor that essential businesses need to close by 8 pm each evening. This was not true, and potentially damaging to many small businesses.
We will continue to hold #FridayForums at 12:30 pm each end of the week. The latest one is available to join here. - Finally, we’ve donated to a few local organizations that are assisting in the efforts of first responders, who are on our front lines at the time of this writing. I won’t list them here. If you’re reading this…you know you you are. Thank you for organizing your efforts. They will be remembered for years to come.
There will be more announcements in the coming weeks, detailing how we are adjusting our operations to meet the needs of a new generation of startups, small businesses and organizations – who have experienced the cuture shock of what I call “The Great Reset”. We’re resetting our priorities as we speak. As I listen to the news each day, amidst all the tragedy, amidst all the challenges that our entire world has encountered and will endure for many months to come – I still come away with a feeling of hope. Hope that we are all doing our part to prevent a much more tragic outcome.
As many World, National State and Local leaders have emphasized, this is going to be a difficult several months. I don’t want to think about what could happen, but like all of us – I want us to be prepared for anything. So that is the way we will operate, now and in the immediate future. We hope that our small actions can assist our valued community, as they navigate through this crisis.
God bless you all. Be safe and healthy. We will get through this, together.
Sincerely,
Thomas Ossa
CEO, RocklandWeb
(845) 877-7333
www.rocklandweb.com