Every January, I invite some close friends over to spend an afternoon sipping wine and crafting vision boards for the upcoming year. Last January, I poured the last of a bottle of Schooner and studied my finished board for 2020—pleased with the magazine clippings I had arranged in a specific Feng Shui, Bagua style, certain that my vision would bring love, happiness and success. Boy, was I in for a shock. I had no way of knowing that the Coronavirus was already in the United States, and as it turns out, what you don’t know WILL hurt you.

By March, the world had changed forever. When the NBA shuttered its season on March 11, the mindset of the entire country shifted—this was the real deal. When I sat at a Tahoe restaurant with my husband on Friday the 13th, he predicted this would be the last meal we would share at a restaurant for some time. We spent the weekend in our cabin watching the news, drinking, talking, drinking some more. By the time we drove down the hill the following Monday, California was essentially shut down—not just restaurants, but all of my clients in retail. My heart stopped. What would happen to my business? My European vacation? My life? I felt stuck and scared. My marketing agency made it through 911, the 2008 housing bubble, and the Great Recession. But this felt different.

The next morning, I began receiving emails that felt like obituaries from business associates. They said things like, “sorry your business is in trouble,” and “Wow are you scared or what? What are you going to do?” Yet somehow those emails lit a fire in my belly. As the saying goes, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. I refused to go into panic mode and overthink this crisis. I quickly dismissed those emails and started working to create trackable programs and solutions for CMA’s retail clients. I did yoga alone in my empty office and placed that vision board right in front of my yoga mat. I was determined to hold true to my vision. I realized that if I was able to adapt, maybe I could use this crisis to my advantage. Survival of the fittest. Like they taught us in high school biology.

The next several weeks weren’t easy. We lost one of our biggest clients. Other longtime clients couldn’t handle the stress and closed shop. My staff and I stayed after it, and my staff stayed with me. I stopped listening to the news and made-up positive stories in my head. I decided to dump fear and take action. I saw more and more of my competition folding—which created openings for CMA. Losing a couple large accounts turned out to be a blessing—we were not tied down and became more agile. It became a perfect opportunity to rethink our entire business model and emphasize digital marketing. We began preparing new campaigns for the re-opening with new Covid-19 protocols. We created incentive shopping programs and trackable sales that resulted from them. Everything had a report to back-up sales results. And for our big bang idea, we created a retail resurrection program that not only helped rescue existing clients, but also brought many new clients to our agency many had been waiting for the perfect opportunity to make a change in their marketing departments and this gave CMA a chance to pounce.

As we neared the holidays, we sought to help our retailers realize a successful shopping season. Inspired by the graduation program at our neighborhood high school, we created drive-thru events for Halloween and then Christmas. Some clients questioned whether such events would drive sales, and my answer was perhaps not immediately. But they will certainly drive loyalty and instill a sense of community. The results were resounding. Like fun in a bottle. The faces of those happy children are burned into my memory. Parents could not thank us enough. We were able to market our clients and provide both community and hope.

As I write this blog, I am filled with gratitude. Grateful for gutsy clients who did not give up. Grateful for my staff who bought into my crazy ideas. Grateful for friends and family who helped me see the positive side of this crisis. But mostly I’m grateful for that vision board I placed in front of me every time I practiced yoga or meditated. Next month I will be inviting friends over to for a little distanced sip & clip and plan a new vision for 2021. And one thing I know for sure: it’s not silly to sip optimism.