The pandemic has been tough on small businesses. Nearly two of every three have yet to surpass sales levels reached prior to the COVID-19 breakout, a recent survey showed.
Others, however, absorbed the initial jolt, adapted to market needs and found new growth.
Business owner Hermes Ortiz, who specializes in signs and banners, embroidery and engraving, pivoted to customized face masks and bilingual signs for his Hispanic customers, including restaurants and transport companies.
“You’re looking for what the community needs in this moment,’’ says Ortiz of his Brooklyn business. “In the pandemic, the community needed facemasks and signs in two languages, Spanish and English, so that’s what I do.”
The headwinds that soon followed the start of the pandemic in 2020 – temporary shutdowns, pandemic protocols, balky supply chains, inflation, and a labor crunch – have roiled small businesses in the three years since, said Michael Goldberg, an associate professor in the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University.
“The abruptness of the pandemic caused all sorts of challenges for small business owners and entrepreneurs,’’ Goldberg said. “The normal way of doing business went away.”
Billions of dollars distributed by the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program helped thousands of small businesses weather the pandemic. But as of January, only 36% of small businesses reported being back to or beyond pre-pandemic sales levels, according to a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business, a trade group for small businesses.
Business owners had to get creative in response to the pandemic, Goldberg said. That could mean a new product or service, or a greater and more strategic use of technology and online platforms. Every approach was different.
Cranking out masks
In early 2020, Ortiz and his wife Jeannette had moved their growing business, Ortiz Art Drafts Designs, from a Hispanic business incubator on Cleveland’s near West Side to a suburban Brooklyn storefront.
They added an expensive laser engraver, too, expanding their ability to answer the promotional and marketing needs of Cleveland’s Hispanic community. The Puerto Rican couple had started their business in 2016 with embroidery services. Sales expanded as word of their quality work spread through the Hispanic community.
When the pandemic hit in March 2020, customers hit the brakes.
“I talked to my wife and said, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on? What’s the next step?’ ” Ortiz said. “She said maybe we can do face masks. And that’s what we did – personalized, with the company logo or other information on the masks.”
They cranked them out, peaking at several hundred per day. That generated vital revenue for nearly two years. Restaurants also began calling for window signs and floor decals, in Spanish and English, listing business hours, directions for safely picking up food orders and other pandemic-related information.
