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Communities around the world are facing unique challenges right now. For business owners, the stakes are particularly high — you may be navigating new situations or making unprecedented changes and decisions.
We’ve compiled the below tips and guidance from Square to help you.
To hear more from Square about additional resources and updates on Square products, please reference our Resource Hub, which will be updated frequently.
For more information on federal and state regulations and resources, please reference this article.
Health and Safety
Keeping yourself, your employees, and your customers safe is a top priority right now. There are a variety of methods you can use — like contactless payments — to protect your business and customers.
- What Is a Contactless Payment?
- Digital Transactions: Benefits of Mobile Wallets for Businesses
- How to Take Payments over the Phone
- What Is a Virtual Terminal?
Stress Management
With the fast-changing situation and fluctuating economy, you may be facing a lot of uncertainty and stress. Prioritizing your business, customers, and employees right now is important, but don’t forget to take care of yourself.
- How to Manage Stress: 9 Tips for Entrepreneurs
- How to Stay Healthy as a Small Business Owner
- Strategies for Staying Calm Under Pressure as a Small Business Owner
- 7 Simple Ways to Melt Away Stress
Communicating with Customers
Reaching out to customers to give updates and keep them informed on how they can interact with your business is a great way to maintain your customer relationships. Put together an email strategy to guide your approach to keeping your customers in the loop.
- What Should Your Emails Say? A Primer on Email Content for Your Business
- Voice and Tone: An Integral Part of Your Email Marketing Strategy
- Introduction to Basic Email Design
- Email Cadence 101: When and How Often You Should Send Email
- Everything You Need to Know About Email Marketing
Managing and Communicating with Employees
This time is as unpredictable for you as it is for your employees. Your first priority is to keep your team healthy. Whether that means employees are working from home or not coming into work at all, here are a few resources to help you manage them.
For Employers:
- CDC Resources for Employers
- How to Work from Home Like a Pro
- The Best Way to Approach Tough Conversations with Employees
Financial Management
Mandated business closures and travel restrictions may make your sales patterns unpredictable. Here are some resources to help you manage and evaluate your current financial status, and discover the best way to triage a cash flow problem.
- 5 Ways to Be Resourceful and Save Money
- 5 Tips for Business Owners to Manage Their Cash Flow
- How to Create a Cash Flow Analysis That Unveils Opportunities
- How to Use Transfers to Manage Your Cash Flow
- The 7 Most Affordable Business Loans for Entrepreneurs
- Business Debit Card vs. Credit Card: What’s Right for Your Small Business?
Square has a number of cash flow management tools help you manage your business finances online. Here are a few steps you can take to get a clear picture of your finances using Square Dashboard:
- Generate reports: View your sales, spending, and transfers in a simple report. You can also add filters to include the components most useful to you.
- Track spending by adding Personal and Business labels to your transactions.
- Transfer funds in the Balance section of your account.
- Add Money to transfer funds into your Square Balance if you have a Square Debit Card, or initiate an outbound transfer via Instant Transfer (1.75% fee) or a next-business day transfer (free).
- Make a purchase: You can instantly access the money in your Square Checking balance with Square Debit Card.
Selling Online
Whether your business is experiencing a government-mandated closure or you’ve decided to temporarily close your doors, or you’re starting to consider the possibility of having to, now is the time to consider letting your customers know how to find you online.
If you don’t yet have an online store, below are resources to help you get up and running. If you do, we’ve provided some helpful resources to help you maximize your efforts to sell online.
- The Importance of Starting an Online Store
- How to Choose the Right Online Store Platform for Your Business
- How to Sell Products Online with eCommerce Marketing
- How to Drive Sales to Your Website
- How to Increase Gift Card Sales
Shipping
Shipping might be completely new to your business, or it might have recently ramped up due to an increase in online orders. To navigate shipping, here are a few resources to help you optimize the process.
- 5 Ways to Make Shipping More Efficient
- What to Think About When You Think About Shipping
- How to Offer Free Shipping Without Breaking the Bank
- How Do You Offer Competitive Shipping Without Sacrificing Your Margins? [Infographic]
- Is Your Shipping Area Maximized for Efficiency?
Utilizing Social Media
Social media can be a great place to build a support network and a place for your customers— and other businesses—to band together and show support online. Here are some tips to get started with Facebook or start using the social network as a primary channel for communicating with customers.
- Here’s How to Create a Facebook Page for Your Business
- 5 Simple Tips for Designing Engaging Facebook Posts
- How to Optimize Facebook Posts to Drive Engagement
- How to Leverage Facebook Insights to Benefit Your Business
We will continue to update this guide and our resource hub with more information and guidance to help you navigate this difficult time in the coming weeks.
