How Buffets Are Responding to COVID-19 Guidelines

Expect lots of temperature checks and one-way routes. ‘As we experienced in China, this will be a journey.’
Wearable social-distancing buzzers. Masked blackjack dealers. Drive-thru electronics purchases. From cubicles to factory floors, cafes to clothing boutiques, businesses around the world are dreaming up creative ways to reopen, attempting to start revenue flowing again while minimizing the risk to customers and employees.
The global economy is riding on their ability to pull off that delicate balance. A new flareup of Covid-19 cases could shutter offices, stores, restaurants and manufacturing plants once again, further choking off the flow of goods and services and threatening more jobs. Some governments, such as China, are providing rigorous oversight of the process. Others, including President Donald Trump’s administration, have offered looser guidance and are entrusting businesses to monitor their facilities. Scientists are still studying how the virus is spread, and whether keeping people six feet apart is enough, adding to the risks.
The companies’ plans rely on a steady supply of masks, gloves, thermometers and tests that is likely to strain budgets and manufacturers’ ability to keep up. Social distancing will be built in, with people divided by barriers and kept apart from colleagues and customers, a U-turn after years of movement toward open floor plans. Some companies will monitor employees more closely than ever before, while others will let workers choose how much protection they need. The way we work, shop, travel and eat in 2020 – and probably beyond – is being plotted out in boardrooms around the world.
Here are the changes companies are contemplating for their workplaces in the coming weeks.

The Office

Seats on the shuttle bus to Unilever’s Shanghai offices can be reserved using a chat group. Employees must be masked to board, and they sit on alternating sides, one person to each four-seat row. Upon arrival, each worker scans a QR code and fills out a health status report to get a daily pass to enter. Then comes the temperature check and the hand sanitizer.
Inside the office, movement is tightly regulated. Employees keep their masks on and are encouraged to use the stairs instead of the elevator, with spritzes of hand sanitizer before and after touching the regularly disinfected handrail. In the canteen, a single person is allowed at each four-seat table.
Such measures might seem predictable in a centrally controlled society like China, but some version of them is starting to appear in the West. At Britain’s former state phone monopoly, BT Group Plc, call center workers sit two meters apart, and walkways are designated as one-way to keep people from brushing past each other. Temperature checks are becoming routine at Sistema, the Russian conglomerate, which also says it’s developed its own two-hour test for Covid-19. Employees who come to the office have been tested in the past couple of weeks, though as many as half of the call center workers at MTS, the mobile network controlled by Sistema, are operating out of their homes.

More Room

Flexible space operator Knotel, which runs offices for corporations including Uber and Netflix, says workplace design has to change. Offices will likely be less densely populated, and altered to make them “antiviral,” according to Amol Sarva, Knotel’s chief executive officer.
“Things like ventilation, UV light, density screening, video monitoring, and temperature monitoring, cleaning protocols — those are all going to have to change,” he said. “Certainly there’ll be more space.”
In China, Cushman & Wakefield has helped move nearly a million workers back into 800 million square feet (74 million square meters) of office space. The company is creating a Recovery Readiness manual for landlords and tenants, based in part on its experience in China, that includes colored carpets to create visual boundaries around desks, plexiglass shields between desks that face each other and signs that direct walking traffic in a single direction.

Fewer Meetings

Even when people do come back to the office, meetings will be limited, and large gatherings are out of the question. This week, Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg canceled all physical events of 50 or more people through June 2021. The vast majority of employees are required to work from home through May, and those who need to carry on doing so will be able to work at home through the summer.
The road to normalcy may be much longer than that. At Abcam Plc, a British protein research company, 40 out of 300 China-based employees started returning to work in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Hong Kong on Feb. 14. Two months later, the company is running split shifts to maintain distancing for the roughly 50% of employees based in manufacturing, logistics and essential lab work.

The Factory

On Feb. 10, Winly Automotive (Wuhan) Ltd. was assigned a checklist from the government. To reopen, the company would be required to have a one-month stash of masks and sanitizer, take a photo of the supplies, and send it to officials before submitting to a detailed inspection. “The policy has been constantly changing,” said Wang Xuepan, one of the plant’s managers. “It’s very difficult for us to handle.”
In the Seattle area, Boeing Co. has worked with the Washington state labor department on a plan to reopen its factories. It will be doling out cloth masks to most workers, saving the gold-standard N95 masks for a select few in more hazardous conditions.
Unlike office drones, factory workers have to show up in person to get the job done. Figuring out what basic protections they’ll need is part of the challenge. At Boeing, industrial engineers are analyzing the sequence of work on its assembly lines to find ways to spread apart workers.

Taking the Temperature

Airbus SE has divided employees at its plants into red and blue teams, who don’t see each other because they use different routes to enter and exit buildings. Volkswagen AG is allotting more time between shifts and reducing expectations for production because it takes longer for people to move around each other at a safe distance. Ford Motor Co. is experimenting with wearable devices that would buzz workers if they get too close together.
While the virus can be transmitted by people with no symptoms, many manufacturers are doing temperature checks, whether with thermometers, thermal imaging cameras or — in the case of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV in the U.S. — reusable forehead strips.
Fiat Chrysler, whose CEO Mike Manley is one of the executives talking with Trump about reopening the economy, is requiring workers to fill out a health questionnaire two hours before reporting to work each day. They must bring either a hard copy, or scan a QR code with their phone, to prove they aren’t displaying signs of illness or exposure to the virus, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg. Workers can’t enter the plant without it.
Some companies are closing cafeterias in favor of vending machines. Dongfeng PSA in Wuhan is handing out prepared lunchboxes to employees, who must eat at least 1.5 meters apart with their backs to each other.
Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. said Chairman Li Shufu wrote a song to keep workers motivated through such dreariness. “A world full of expectations/Turned to dust of yesterday,” the lyrics go. “Their sorrow flowing into the sea/But the flower of love is quietly blooming.”

The Airplane

When air travel resumes in earnest, it’s likely that hand sanitizers, face masks and thermometers will become standard at most major airports, said David Powell, medical adviser for the International Air Transport Association, a trade group. All three have shortcomings, but can also reassure passengers, he said.
The International Civil Aviation Organization, which sets global flying standards, wants to establish a “public health corridor concept.” Under such a plan, major airlines, airports, public authorities and other parties would adopt common protocols for screening, boarding, in-flight procedures, arrivals, customs and baggage.
“We cannot all just stop flying,” Ansa Jordaan, the group’s chief of aviation medicine, said during an April 15 webcast.
Emirates Airline said this week it was the first to conduct rapid Covid-19 blood tests, with results available in 10 minutes for passengers flying Wednesday from Dubai to Tunisia. It plans to extend the procedure to other flights, according to Chief Operating Officer Adel Al Redha.
Other carriers are attempting less invasive measures. Etihad Airways, another major airline in the United Arab Emirates, plans to deploy touchless self-service devices at its hub airport in Abu Dhabi to identify travelers with medical conditions, including the early stages of coronavirus.
In the U.S., American Airlines Group Inc. plans to continue spacing customers apart during boarding and flights, conducting extensive cleanings of aircraft and reducing food and beverage service to limit contact, CEO Doug Parker said in an April 15 video message.
“When you do fly, aircraft cleanliness and social distancing matter greatly,” he said.

The Store

In China, it’s become standard to have your temperature taken any time you want to go shopping. Visitors to the Wuhan International Plaza luxury mall are checked for a fever at the door, before they queue up to be served one at a time at Louis Vuitton.
Levi Strauss & Co. disinfects its Chinese stores three times a day and requires temperature checks for customers, who are expected to wear masks before entering the store. Fitting rooms and products that have been tried on are disinfected each time they’re used.
It’s unclear whether practices implemented in China will make their way to other parts of the world, though several companies said they’ll learn from their experience in Asia.

Drive-Thru Shopping

Another technique is to keep shoppers out of the store altogether. Dixons Carphone Plc, the electronics retailer, is considering plans for contact-free “drive-thru” style stores to limit the risk of coronavirus for staff and customers. Shoppers would park outside, call the store to select items to buy, use a contactless system to pay and then open their trunks so staff could deliver the products.
Salespeople at luxury retailers in China were already using social media to engage with customers before the outbreak, but they’ve stepped up the effort since, adding clients on WeChat and sending them information about the latest trends. Louis Vuitton tried showcasing its summer product line in a livestream show on March 26 featuring a social-media star, but was ridiculed for the quality of the video. Sometimes there’s no substitute for personal contact.

The Restaurant

Buffets and salad bars will be re-thought, and self-serve drink stations may be “a thing of the past,” said Taco John’s CEO Jim Creel, who added that other changes are afoot at the 387-store chain. Taco John’s popular salsa bar — around for the past 15 years — may be removed.
“We hope we don’t have to take them out — that we’ll be able to figure out a way to make them still work — but I’m afraid the fear factor our there will force us to go to a pre-packaged option.”
A test of self-ordering kiosks may also get pulled back. “It was a good idea three months ago, but not so good today,” Creel said.

Phone Pay

In China, restaurants and even bars have opened back up in Shanghai, with varying limits on seating arrangements – some allow six to a table, others only one. In Beijing, restaurants are doing temperature checks. In Wuhan, most places are still delivery-only.
“In the short run, as dining rooms open back up again, you’ll probably see many restaurants space their tables a little bit further apart,” said Jack Li, CEO of menu researcher Datassential. “You’ll see more restaurants try to adopt phone pay. So not having to hand your money or card to anyone. You’re certainly going to see more places continue to do things like contactless delivery.”
Starbucks Corp. is taking a store-by-store approach to resuming business activities in the U.S., with services limited to drive-thru, delivery and takeout via mobile orders and contactless pickup.
“As we experienced in China, this will be a journey,” CEO Kevin Johnson wrote in a memo to staff on Thursday.

The Menu

Chains are cutting back menus, focusing on products that sell best and are easy to make. Romano’s Macaroni Grill has pared down its menu to 70% of what it used to be, saying goodbye to pizzas and calzones recently. McDonald’s all-day breakfast menu is gone.
Fazoli’s Italian restaurant chain is trying to secure Purell sanitizing stations – four for each store — along with “millions” of alcohol-based wipes for re-opening the dining rooms of its 216 locations. The company is also re-thinking bathrooms and looking into touch-less soap dispensers. It’s an investment, but a worthwhile one, says CEO Carl Howard.
“I want to let the consumer know I’m doing everything I can to keep them as safe as possible,” Howard said in an interview.

The Arena

Large public gatherings aren’t top of mind yet in China, but Trump and the people who run the U.S.’s biggest sports leagues appear aligned in their thinking that live games, at least in some form, are a critical part of helping the country recover.
“The progression needs to be open outdoor sports first, golf, tennis, swimming so that we can start to test the waters — that I’m fine with,” said billionaire Mark Cuban, who owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.
One obstacle may be local politicians. When UFC floated plans to host an event this weekend on tribal land in California without spectators, it was pressure from politicians, including Governor Gavin Newsom, that led to its cancellation. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has reportedly discussed the possibility of prohibiting large gatherings like concerts and sporting events in the city for another year.

The Movies

That said, there’s billions on the line for sports leagues, sponsors and media networks if the games don’t resume soon. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert, has said that that the only way to do that this summer is to close venues to fans and keep all the players, coaches and referees isolated from society.
Cinema owners are also waiting to see when health officials give them clearance to open up. Cinemark Holdings Inc., the third-largest U.S. movie chain, has been in discussions with major film studios about when to release blockbusters again. The chain’s management thinks they could begin bringing back staff starting in late June, then build up a marketing campaign for a broader re-opening on July 1.
The experience won’t be like it was before coronavirus hit. The chain will either have to limit the available tickets for each showing, leaving about half its seats open. Or it may eliminate reserved seating, so customers can voluntarily spread themselves out when they arrive. Cleaning will have to be ramped up, and opening hours may be limited to accommodate the changes.
“How long that will take? We’re not completely certain,” said Mark Zoradi, Cinemark’s CEO, on a call with analysts and investors on Wednesday. “But we’re planning on anywhere from one to three months to light up that engine again and then to begin with higher profile, new product.”

The Casino

Las Vegas casino executives have discussed opening with as little as one-third of their rooms available, with limited entrances where guests’ temperatures could be checked. Casino employees would wear masks and gloves, and gamblers would sit at least a chair apart at blackjack tables.
The moves are similar to what is already occurring in Macau, the world’s largest gambling market, where casinos closed for 15 days in February and reopened under tight restrictions.
The companies are also discussing enhanced cleaning techniques, something unions have requested.

Fun Parks

The $19.3 billion U.S. theme park industry is also making plans, though no one knows when gates will reopen.
When they do, employees may be wearing masks and temperatures may be checked not only at the entrances but inside as well, said Dennis Speigel, a theme park consultant in Cincinnati. Operators may also institute virtual queues, where guests snag a place in line through an app and come to ride when it’s their turn.
“The theme park of the future is going to have to take a much different turn, from distancing to wanding to cleaning,” Speigel said. “I’ve never heard the fear in the voices that I’ve heard. Nobody knows what they’re going to be doing.”
Bloomberg News - With assistance from Thomas Buckley, Thomas Seal, Dana Hull, Natalie Wong, Julie Johnsson, Charlotte Ryan, Christoph Rauwald, Kyunghee Park, Gabrielle Coppola, Shiho Takezawa, Tian Ying, Chunying Zhang, Keith Naughton, Mary Schlangenstein, Justin Bachman, Layan Odeh, Jordyn Holman, Deirdre Hipwell, Robert Williams, Kim Bhasin, Jinshan Hong, Claire Che, Leslie Patton, Kelly Gilblom and Christopher Palmeri.

Hi ERA, I've been part of this sub since day 1 and thought I'd throw in a bit of what I'm doing. Initially I didn't want to share it, because it's a pretty lucrative industry with relatively easy entry, but I figured more competition can't hurt and maybe I could get some synergy going with some advice. Hopefully I can break this down step by step well enough to see how others can jump into this wherever they live. It's actually quite simple.
So what is it exactly??
Selling solar systems out of Las Vegas NV
My background I worked with a lot of startups in the past all over the world. Usually somewhere involved with growth, so usually in the sales arena. My philosophy has always been "work smart, not hard" and managed to get by as a top performer usually exerting the least amount of work. I don't say this because I'm lazy (which is partially true) but because I just like focusing on the best bang for your buck. While everyone tries to grind away all day, I like to work on scalable systems that automate much of my effort.
I got into entrepreneurship when working for an advertising company and was able to look into how they did things, and most of the time, these clients of mine were complete idiots but managed to have really successful companies. Most of which, they really didn't even "work" much. They just outsourced everything. So when the company closed our local office because it was unionized and the union was a pain in the ass, I declined to move to the Alabama HQ (easy decision) and take home as much data I could get.
I eventually found a solid niche that had huge payouts that had untouched marketing channels. It was addiction rehabilitation, which pays out ~450-600 per qualified inbound call (insured). It cost me about 300 bucks a month using banner ads and such. Eventually I was pulling in about 10k completely passively, living in Berlin. I quit the consulting job I had there after one week, on the spot. Basically I was 10 minutes late to some sales meeting I didn't even need to be at, which is insanity to the German's who are all about being on time and such.
I was only making like 3k euros a month with that gig, and I just couldn't rationalize working for someone else who demanded I had to be somewhere between X and Y hours, especially when I was making 3x that passively.
Unfortunately for me, I got lazy. I wasn't staying on top of the business because i was busy chasing women and travelling around Europe, so the actual hard working marketers were discovering my secrets and out performing me, slowly strangling my income. Then Trump happened, which completely rattled up the industry with his threats of repealing Obamacare... Eventually my now budget of 2k a month and income of 5k, couldn't keep me going through the tough times when people were getting really scared with their marketing budgets. Eventually it folded after I couldn't keep up with running in the red, leaving me at the end of the day -9k in debt!
How I got into solar
I needed something to do. A passive business is boring as fuck, and leads to me getting into a lot of trouble. It sounds way more fun than it is, but ultimately just boring, so I decided to get back into solar since it literally just reopened in Las Vegas where I was now living again, and had some experience in it.
Eventually this lead me down the path of working with another company which had a really awesome golden goose of a contract.... However, the company was managed by a complete scam artist liar who somehow managed to destroy a sure thing.
After it all fell apart, several of us managers were able to start looking into their margins and how the business was ran, but basically the sales people did ALL the work. They scouted out leads, acquired clients, and were paid commission only, at about 300 (150 if the company generated the lead for us) dollars per kilowatt system... So a 10kw system netted 3k USD. Not bad... But then we realized what the company was getting... They were getting +600 USD per kw on top of what we were getting. Yes, they were pulling in 6k off a deal I made 3k on, for doing absoltuely nothing other than just doing payroll. Insanity! Turns out, this is pretty much universial for the whole industry. Our pricepoints and commission is the industry standard. So when we could be making 10k off a deal, we were only making 3k and sending the rest to the owners.
So all we did was after our company fell apart, we called the installer we used, and negotiated the same exact deal. Normally you already need to be bringing in large volume to get an installer agreement as a broker, but we knew the owners who liked us so they let us do it as a small solo team.
The product
Selling solar is incredibly easy, believe it or not. While it is technically a large ticket item (20-45k average), the product itself is a no-brainer once the customer actually gets educated on how solar works in today's world.
Basically, the sales process is simple. You get their bill and figure out how much energy they use each year, then build them a system which covers all that usage so they wont need a power bill from NVE ever again. Then you calculate their average monthly bill, let's say 100 dollars a month. Then you present to them the monthly cost to finance a solar system for 20 years is 80 dollars a month. Immediate savings. Not only that, you show the value that the cost is FIXED for 20 years... Meaning they are hedging against well established energy rate increases of about 5% annually. So right there, the numbers just start making a lot of sense. Surprisingly, no one gives a shit about the whole environmental aspect of it, so that's never brought up. Finally, you just explain how right now they are just GIVING AWAY 100 dollars a month to Warren Buffet (his firm owns our power plant) and literally getting no value out of that money. So even if the solar system adds only a fraction of it's value to the home (which isn't the case, but I like to use worst case scenarios to show how it's a no-brainer) at least your monthly power bill is returning SOME value. That 80 dollars is at least going to add SOME equity vs NO equity at all.
Once you educate a homeowner on the value of solar this way, it's a ridiculously easy product to sell. Like I said, so long as it's framed as a no brainer -- which it is -- it's simple. Some people will want to price shop around, but usually they don't (They could get slightly better deals than us, I'll admit -- but there are so many variables with each company, like panel types, warranties, etc...) because it already makes sense and customers usually by the person not the product. This is actually why I like to bring my GF around to counter me, so she can keep building fun rapport with the customer while I do the nitty gritty technical stuff like coordinating with the design team and getting the loan docs up. My conversion rate used to be about 50%, but ever since bringing my GF around, so far it's 80% so long as they qualify.
Marketing
This is without a doubt the hardest part. Actually finding people to sit down and listen to the pitch is unbelievably hard. The traditional way is door to door knocking. Usually the door knockers are Mormons, like most of the people in the industry. They are so used to door knocking for the last 2 years on their mission, that you can easily find them to work door knocking 2-3 hours a day at 200-300 per kw (They door knock, find the lead, and sell it themselves)... While other companies will just hire them as exclusivley door knockers, who get paid commission only at 1000 per converted appointment (If any marketers here want to do some rev-share, let me know!). As you can imagine, with a 50% close rate for experienced people in the industry, these door knockers with no sales skills, can make a HUGE killing. The problem is finding them, since no one likes knocking doors in the punishing Las Vegas summer heat, while others like myself just can't overcome the anxiety of door knocking.
Since this is being completely bootstrapped we really don't have the funds to hire people since payout is 40% at final contract and 60% at install. So instead I have just engaged in digital marketing where I'm more comfortable.
Facebook No one in this industry uses Facebook ads to market around here... Which kind of scared me. I asked myself "Why aren't these other successful companies using this marketing channel?" Turns out, because it's hard, and requires an expert. It failed for me, until I got a friend from SA who's familiar with FB ads as an expert in the field, and basically figured out it could be done. The problem is it requires a lot of upfront cost to deploy and meticulously funnel people through the process. It's not like traditional marketing where you can just turn on an add, then calculate an ROI and scale out accordingly. It requires a lot of early testing, and a vast amount of multiple stage funneling.
We've figured out the Facebook ad thing, but have put it on pause for now as we don't have the capital to actually make it work at a time when we need more immediate results for bootstrapping.
However, strangely enough, the free "group" advertisements seem to have some traction. I focused on new home owners offering different incentives that they may be into. While the systems are usually smaller on new homes (since it's based on sqft rather than usage) they are the ideal audience because they are in the buying mood for their new home, and also enjoy that there is no upfront cost from them. This is the most fickle mother fucking advertising method I've ever experienced... For starters, copy matters a TON. I still haven't figured out what makes a successful post vs an unnsuccesful one. It's seemingly random. However, the successful ones may get a lot of attention, people will just mysteriously ghost and never progress after messaging you once. It's odd. However, you only need minor success to get a deal. Because remember, each conversion is worth 5k at the baseline on a small system, all the way up to 10-15k on medium sized systems, and then 20-25k on large homes.
Ultimately, marketing is the area we need the most improvement on. It's EXTREMELY expensive in this industry to buy leads, simply because of the ROI here, so we haven't been able to afford quality leads, and generating our own has been hard.
But, like I said, 1 deal a week, and you're making 20k a month. Which isn't hard, because when I was doing this fulltime for the other company, I would do 5 systems a month on a slow month, and the real ass grinders were doing 15 systems! The top producers will do 30 during peak season. In fact, one of our executives from the last company, who saw the ship sinking before anyone else, left early, and sniped a good 25 customers in a high margin state, all over the phone... Bringing him in a good 120k that month alone. Tons of money can be made here.
So far it's just been trying to figure out new effective ways to generate leads, which has been the huge struggle. I've managed to pull in 3 deals this month totaling 15k for me, and my partner did 5 deals, totaling 35k. And that's just us mostly dicking around all day just trying to find ways to get leads. So far, my partner just exclusively hits up his past customers looking for referrals (pays them 500-1000 a referral)
What's great about this is there is TONS of room to scale once we get through the bootstrapping phase in the next few months. Once we have the capital to start doing proper lead generation (which I've completely figured out), it'll be completely automated and will be making tons of money. A lot of friends of ours who did the same are pulling in 500k a year running just one hour long appointment a day.
Sorry about the boring long read btw, I'm nursing a hangover! But if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask... If anyone has any lead generation advice or potential partnerships please suggest!