Managing the financial health of their businesses, marketing and selling their products/services without seeming insensitive or tone deaf, and work-life balance are the key challenges our readers and members are currently facing as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. This data comes courtesy of a recent Women in Retail Leadership Circle survey sent to our Inner Circle subscribers.

The survey asked a series of questions about how women retail leaders are managing in the current COVID-19 crisis, as well as the types of content they would be interested in consuming. In terms of managing the current crisis, survey respondents were asked to rank a series of challenges they’re currently facing. According to the survey, 54.5 percent of respondents ranked “managing the financial health of your business” as their primary challenge, followed by “marketing and selling your products/services without seeming insensitive or tone deaf” (30.7 percent), and then “work-life balance” (26.1 percent). Rounding out the top five challenges chosen by our subscribers are communicating effectively to client shareholders and other stakeholders (14.8 percent), and maintaining productivity levels (8.o percent).

Inner Circle subscribers prefer to consume WIRLC content via e-newsletter or website (chosen by 41 percent of respondents), followed by research reports/whitepapers and social media (tied at 25 percent), and webinars/virtual events (21.6 percent). They’re most interested in hearing from enterprise retailer executives (53.4 percent of respondents ranked this type of content No. 1), followed by entrepreneurs/small business owners (37.5 perfect) and executive coaches (31.8 percent).

Your favorite social media platform to engage WIRLC on? The winner, by far, is LinkedIn, with 64.7 percent of respondents naming this their favorite channel, followed by Instagram (18.8 percent) and Facebook (8.24 percent).

Finally, we asked our subscribers what subject matters they would like us to focus on going forward. Here are just a sampling of some of the great ideas they came up with:

  • Forecasting scenarios and business reactions to future planning for holiday 2020 and 2021;
  • The future of retail jobs — what skills will be necessary to compete;
  • Strategies around pick up in-store when stores re-open — how SMBs will handle resources around delivery;
  • changes in customer purchasing trends;
  • how to successfully pivot company, people, and processes to remain relevant and maintain revenue; and
  • how leaders are staying motivated and motivating their teams when brick-and-mortar is sure to change forever.

Rest assured, we here at the Inner Circle are working hard to bring this type of content to you, both now and going forward. Are there any other topics you would like to see us cover? Please let me know by dropping me a line at mcampanelli@napco.com.

And finally, in next week’s Inner Circle, WIRLC Senior Content Strategist Ashley Chiaradio will present some of the key ways our survey respondents are solving the challenges they’re facing right now, as well how they’re innovating through the COVID-19 crisis.