Kim Dow entered the global pandemic with not one, but two Frederick based businesses.
As owner and publisher of Sass Magazine, an in print women’s lifestyle and business publication that also maintains a national online resource for female entrepreneurs, she’s experienced the brunt of the pandemic through her clients.
“It’s been hard just like with every small business. Our publication is a free resource and we want to keep it that way. But, in order to keep it a free resource, we rely on our advertisers a lot of which are small businesses. So, it’s a trickle down effect you know – our advertisers and small businesses are struggling which means, in turn, we are struggling,” shared Kim.
The impact of this struggle has been felt in many ways but is has not caused them to lose sight of their goal which is to continue to create a quality product for the female entrepreneurs who they serve and the advertisers they support, “Our goal was just to do whatever we could to keep going because we really do feel that Sass Magazine is a great resource for the women in our community.”
Sass Magazine and, Kim’s second business, Sass Studios, a full service graphic design and branding agency, have experienced some exciting changes that were brought about by the pandemic that have propelled her business forward in new ways.
Some of these can be adapted to other businesses who are looking for ways to spark change and success.
Surviving & Thriving Through Pandemic: Innovations That Have Helped Small Businesses Survive & Thrive
Going Virtual
Like all of us, when the pandemic first started in March of 2020, Kim envisioned a two week break to get things under control. When that time frame extended to several weeks and then months, they needed to reevaluate, “We’ve had to really rethink and relook at a lot of our processes,” explained Kim.
Part of that meant moving into a virtual and sacrificing their office space in downtown.
“We actually left our office space in downtown Fredrick and we are working virtually now,” explained Kim. “It was a decision that was kind of something I was thinking about doing, and when COVID hit it was kind of a no brainer,” said Kim.
They’ve experienced some positives and negatives, but it has ultimately worked well for them.
“We have a flex work schedule that is working out really well, but I will say that I do really miss the collaborative environment that we always had in our office space. Even though I think a lot of businesses will stay with some work from home options, I foresee that things will go back to some of those co-working spaces or multiuse spaces just for that collaborative and team building effort.”
Investing in Digital Presence
Sass also spent their time beefing up their digital presence to create a more comprehensive, interactive space.
“We really focused on our digital content… I would say we tripled our web traffic, increased our contributors so that they’re all over the country now. And we continued our mission to be positive… We really tried to be a voice of positivity through this,” said Kim.
That commitment and that time to really step back and reevaluate how they bring value into the digital space had a profound impact on their content, their reach and their path forward, ” “That mentality and that mindset really opened up the type of content that we do now and will continue to do online, and it broadened our audience not to be just a local and regional audience, but our digital presence is now national and even international.”
Reimagining Events
For those in the event space, finding innovative ways to bring those events to people in a safe way and engaging way has become quite the challenge.
Forced to eliminate their well attend and popular local Like A Boss roundtables that brings women together to learn and collaborate, Kim and her team at Sass decided to launch the series online this spring.
The format, limited to 40 participants, “We’ve had to really rethink and relook at a lot of our processes,” explained Kim. in order to make it as intimate and personalized as possible will now occur monthly, online and will get female entrepreneurs in front of national experts in different fields – a new element that wasn’t possible when the events were held locally.
As Kim shared, “One of the benefits of switching to virtual – we have speakers from all over the country who were able to do it [Like a Boss Series] and not have to travel and worry about logistics and stuff… Our networks have expanded!”
Already filling up, the Like A Boss series is set to launch in April, 2021.
Collaborating
Frederick is a community that knows how to come together and we’ve seen that in so many ways throughout this pandemic.
Literally I’ve been blown away by how so many people have just come together to support the restaurants, the retail shops, the service businesses, really anywhere!”
And business owners have reached out to each other and found new ways to collaborate, “Small businesses have really come together to collaborate in a lot of unique ways,” shared Kim.
For Sass, they introduced a lunch and learn to support their advertisers with their marketing by providing free, creative marketing strategies for their advertisers in need, “Most small business owners, they’re not marketers, but also, now, their days are filled with making sure their staff and their customers are healthy, making sure they’re following code… There are so many more things that you kinda have to worry about now,” explained Kim.
“A lot of small businesses have had to cut their budgets for marketing, which I totally understand, but now’s not the time to do that… we’re hoping these lunch and learns will give them some ideas for both paid and organic ways to market that they might not have thought about.”
Visit Sass Magazine here.
Frederick Chamber Insights is a news outlet of the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce. For more information about membership, programs and initiatives, please visit our website.