Sparkol Stories: How COVID-19 affected my business - an interview with Alison Edgar

Naomi Linford Feb 24, 2021 2:18:00 PM

We’re excited to launch this first video as part of the ‘Sparkol Stories’ series. We’ll be interviewing different business owners to learn how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their organization.

It was awesome to have Alison Edgar join us to share her story in the first episode. Alison is a best selling author, founder of Sales Coaching Solutions and is rather wonderfully known as the ‘Entrepreneur's Godmother’, due to her work with Dragon’s Den and Apprentice Winners, among other high profile entrepreneurs.

 


Alison discussed the challenges her business has faced, since the ability to host public speaking events has - for obvious reasons - stagnated. “I’ve moved to working with big organizations virtually. For example, yesterday I did a session with a big international company on positivity, pivot and proactivity.”

Running virtual sessions with clients is not the only way Alison has been adapting to the current situation. She also spoke about how having a forward thinking mindset has helped during the crisis.

“A few years ago we developed our online courses and we have a suite of products that people can buy. A lot of people are now jumping in and trying to create these products. In a business you change on the way up, not on the way down”. Emphasizing the importance of adapting in advance, rather than as a knee-jerk reaction to a situation such as this. 

We also really admired Alison’s positivity, as she chatted about the importance of looking ahead and using this time to invest in marketing tools and create strength around your brand. 

When we get back to a ‘new normal’ once lockdown starts to ease, Alison noted that some of the changes to her business could be here to stay. Questioning whether travel will be completely necessary in the future, Alison explained that her sales figures were not dissimilar to months prior to lockdown, but the cost to her business (namely travel) has greatly decreased. 

Meaning Alison not only has more flexibility in the future and doesn’t have to always travel, but she can bring her overheads down too. With the help of a green screen it’s difficult to tell she’s even at home, which helps her maintain professionalism at all times. 

 

Our favorite take away from our conversation with Alison was this: “Using tools like VideoScribe and things like that are huge. It’s about being creative and doing things differently. A lot of businesses are on what I call the hamster wheel. They always do what they’ve always done, and haven’t got enough time to look at new things... I think if COVID-19 has given us one thing, it’s given us time to plan, organize and be fantastic when we come out the other end.

We hope that’s given you some food for thought and just want to end by saying a big thanks to Alison for taking the time to chat with us. You can watch the next episode of the Sparkol Stories here.