As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread across the country in the untouched areas of the past, national reports highlight a grim economic fact: an unprecedented number of small businesses across the country are victims. the biggest drop in American history.
In mid-July, nearly 55% of the 132,500 pandemic closures observed on Yelp were now permanent, according to site statistics.
Yelp’s report is just a compilation. Permanent closures do not get more information than a mention in a local newspaper, and it can take years to correctly calculate the scope of the butcher’s shop. However, for each and every history of transitority or permanent closures, there are a multitude of small business owners suffering from adapting to a radically altered economic landscape only when 2020 begins.
One of them is Ahmad Aissa, founder and Aissa Sweets in Concord.
The former Syrian refugee has faced serious non-public and advertising challenges, but nothing has prepared him for the immediate dissolution of the market of his logo of baklavas and dates cakes.
Aissa founded Aissa Sweets in a shared area in Dover in 2012 before moving her developing business to Concord. It has grown from a few local wholesale locations to dozens of grocery retail outlets and specialty outlets in New England, across the country and in British Columbia. Canada.
Then, from March, orders ceased.
“When I first heard about the coronavirus and did some research, it was transparent that the pandemic was going to be a problem,” Aissa said. “It was a shame. We had a stable of orders from that area, and then things stopped all of a sudden. .
Orders were stopped for an explanation of why it was not thought as before the pandemic: customers’ handling of food products as baked goods from outdoor stalls disappeared into grocery stores. “We established this distribution formula as a business style in 2013,” Aissa said. Now obsolete. Pandemic hygiene regulations have led to the abrupt closure of those kiosks, buffets and salad bars across the country.
To keep his business alive and thrive in the future, he would want a general reboot and load packaging and marketing to his skills. The most important thing is to create a new touch file of the logo source string.
“We had to restart everything. I think the old source chain channel was dead and I had to take excessive action,” Aissa said. “I’ve tried to go another way with e-commerce, but the fact is that it would possibly not make up for [the big drop in income]. “
At best, Aissa estimates she will see her income fall by two-thirds from nearly $320,000 in 2019. The decrease is likely to be greater.
Redoing and doing so is nothing new for Aissa, a clothing manufacturer who had customers in the Middle East, and met his wife, Evelyn, from New Hampshire, Syria, and left before the worst of the Syrian civil war unfolded.
Speaking little English upon her arrival, Aissa, a company, graduated as a computer science associate from the University of Southern New Hampshire and eventually became an American citizen. She founded Aissa Sweets, encouraged through Middle Eastern recipes that her mother used in her youth.
Closing your business is not an option.
“I must be competitive to get out of this bankruptcy bubble and move on to another model. It is vital to remain competitive and take on the threat of capital to make this possible,” he said.
Aissa has some apparent advantages: she relies on Evelyn to recommend her and is used to being an individual organization [the very narrow prepandemic hard labor market in New Hampshire has almost managed to find assistance consistently].
“For the costs, I wear several caps: I do all the sales, product development, marketing, product design and device maintenance,” he said.
Michael Lewis, a Concord lawyer and friend of Aissa’s, presented pro bono assistance to Aissa triumphantly about the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. In particular, Lewis and his colleague Craig McMahon, of the law firm Rath, Young and Pignatelli, ed Aissa documents for a $35,000 grant from the state’s Main Street Aid Fund.
“I know Ammi, and she’s incredibly dignified,” Lewis said. “It’s like many marketing specialists who have been forced to decide between the ultimate way or the conversion of the way they do business. They face serious obstacles. In ammi’s case, it will take a long time to expand new business contacts. Will they get what they need?”
Aissa has invested main street relief fund cash in a new marketing, study and progression strategy to create product packaging designs and packaging made from scratch, but knows it will require more patience than it might have. an industry I was used to: packaged products. It’s much more competitive to be on store shelves than a ready-to-use display booth. You will also need to expand access to a new set of customer contacts that, least of all, are unaware of Aissa Sweets or the smart reputation she has built over the past decade.
“In the world of groceries, the sale procedure can take 8 months,” Aissa said. “All retail outlets have a system. The challenge as a [pastry] manufacturer is that it’s not about consumers yet of [store] shoppers]. »
Aissa continues to do her homework and is able to pass “at full speed. “
For years, he said, he was accustomed to the monthly paces of visitors’ orders and pastry shop, and is now doing everything he can to locate a new set of rhythms that allow him to revive his business.