Moe Minkara, Creative Director and Founder of Beirut-based Mink agency, explains how the Covid-19 pandemic affected his business and how his team is adapting to the “new normal.”
“hello? Can you hear me? hello..? hellooo? Can you hear me now? Great… Can you see my screen? ok perfect! Sorry about that. Are we all here? ok cool, finally! We can start now….” Power Cut!
If COVID-19 has changed anything, it is our tolerance for patience. We all had to adapt to be more patient with our employees, with our clients, with our families, and most importantly with ourselves.
If I were to sum up our industry in one single sentence it would be- finding creative solutions to business problems. The most important thing is to always remind yourself that COVID-19 is affecting all of us, and only collectively can we come out of it testing negative.
We must not forget that our clients are going through the exact same pain points. It is up to both sides to decide where the relationship goes from here. The more we work together to get through the crisis in goodwill and good faith, the stronger the relationship will remain.
I am a firm believer that change is the only constant in life. Some changes are self-initiated yet most change in life sneaks up on us when we least expect it.
I believe that today most agencies and clients alike have “digitalized” themselves overnight, which is a process that would have taken months if not years had we not been forced to do it.
Remote work, at least in our experience, has proven to be quite productive. But it didn’t come easy, the struggle in the beginning revolved around securing certain emotional anchors that every member of our agency was searching for.
I believe the three main ones were trust, patience, and commitment. I speak on behalf of mink agency when I say that the COVID-19 crisis from a business perspective has been one major team building exercise.
Every team member quickly realized that even though they were alone at home, and unsupervised, if they didn’t commit to their tasks with discipline and dedication it would not only affect them personally but their colleagues as well. And this is where magic happens, when the entire crew tirelessly work under difficult conditions to collectively keep the agency moving forward.
As for the future of our industry, I believe the world just got even smaller. With the global business networking technology that we have all quickly become accustomed to as part of our daily lives, nothing can stop our potential upcoming recruits to be from Saudi Arabia, Brazil, London or any other country in the world.
Will we survive? Those who are resourceful enough to find creative solutions to business problems will always survive.
