With the news of Coronovirus everywhere, the fear of respiratory failure and death is not far from the minds of most people. Coronovirus, we are told is taking over the world. At the time of writing it is in 85 countries, up from 50 a week earlier and if left to itself the Covid-19 pandemic doubles every five to six days.
For many this is doom and disaster, but for others it will be seen as a trigger to move - move somewhere safe for the wife and kids.
Kevin Lemasney of Locate Jersey in his podcast of the week talks of Jersey as a bolt-hole where kids can run free, pop to the beach after school, where no-one locks their doors, no-one fears burglars or intruders, the tax rate is low and there are minimum threats of transmittable diseases.
For others, Coronovirus is a business opportunity. When SARS hit China in 2003 Richard Liu shut shop and set up JD.com. This firm is now worth $64 billion and its subsidiary JD Health now looks to be a similar success.
People in China, and increasingly elsewhere, are told not to visit a hospital with their ailments. Many Chinese are confined to their homes for fear of infection, millions are looking to the internet for consultations, treatment and medicines.
JD Health has seen its monthly consultations grow tenfold since the outbreak, to 2 million. Other tech giants are also taking advantage of the Coronovirus opportunity. Ali Health, an arm of Alibaba, China’s ecommerce titan, launched a free online clinic for residents of Hubei which has been isolated.
Most of the online telemedicine apps are not for profit. Why? These businesses see the outbreak of Coronovirus as an opportunity to change people’s behaviour; to move them away from hospital A&E to online apps, which could, following the virus, become more the norm than going to a virus infected hospital or outpatients.
There could also be business opportunities which may be less obvious.
My suggestion would be for the Society of Trusts and Estates Practitioners (STEP) to launch a Write a Will Week. Most people are superstitious about writing a Will, thinking that the moment the ink is dry, the grim reaper will visit. But from my experience there needs to be much more information as to what the consequences are of not writing a Will - such as tearing apart a family with asset in fighting leading to years of litigation, needless taxation and unnecessary grief.
The Coronovirus pandemic could also be a time to reflect. From what I can see, scores of businesses are cancelling events, and refusing to let their staff travel. Given that the private client industry has traditionally relied on face to face networking to bring in business, maybe this pandemic is what is needed to think of other ways of winning and retaining business.
My dream with the GFOS How to Keep your Money podcasts is to bring all elements of the private client industry together. My belief is that together we can win and retain business, together we can show our clients ‘How to Keep your Money’ and together we can be trusted advisers.
With a little more focus on how to use the internet to connect and convey what we do for our clients in ‘How to Keep your Money’, we could all spend more time doing what we love and less time in virus infected airports, germ invested hotels and endless hours in waiting rooms.
If you would to find out more about our Podcast Professionals or would like to join our project to create the definitive podcast library of information for the UHNW community contact deborah@garnhamfos.com or call 020 3740 7423.