As a luxury business coach, my job is to help my clients dig deep and face aspects of themselves and their businesses they often don’t want to think about. I call them up on not doing enough, not moving fast enough or not paying enough attention. In 2021, you will need to rethink your industry assumptions, whom and how you serve, how you market your products and services, your pricing, your customer’s needs and your place in your industry.

I am a firm believer in the spirit of reciprocity. I believe in offering something first, be it some nuggets of wisdom, or words of encouragement. I believe in building strong and enduring relationships which is vital for the growth of any luxury brand. We will need more of such relationships to move forward, so we can swim together in the luxury industry and not sink alone.

At the start of the pandemic, LVMH announced that it was converting three of its perfume manufacturing facilities where it normally makes fragrances for its Christian Dior, Givenchy and Guerlain brands to make hand sanitizer instead. More importantly, LVMH did not capitalise on the situation to make luxury or ‘branded’ sanitisers. There are many other examples of companies that pivoted temporarily but my point is as we move into the recovery phase, we need to think of ways we can repurpose what we do.

Men lie, women lie but data does not lie. While cash is still king, data is its heir apparent when it comes to the smooth running of any business. It enables you to really understand your clients’ needs and wants and helps you innovate. The pandemic has led to a significant growth in cyber crimes and it is important that you reinforce your cybersecurity and select the right cloud platform for your luxury business.

Storytelling is an artform that creates great branding. Do not be afraid to use your heritage to tell your brand story, communicating it in a fresh way. Your clients often want to know your why, just as much as they wish to know the how, when and where your products are made. Your brand story underlines your uniqueness and your value and is one of the reasons for clients emotionally engaging with our products. In 2021, tell that story.

We often have beliefs about our industry, our industry colleagues and our operating environment which we hold onto. Test those beliefs. Some of those assumptions may no longer be true as the pandemic has led to changing buyer behaviour according to consumer psychology.

This is a big one. The past few months has shown that the unexpected and far fetched can really happen. There has been global socio economic, scientific and technological upheavals. With some governments, we cannot rely on their preparedness only on crisis management if that. You will therefore need to dig deep into your supply of resiliency and improve, adapt and overcome to ensure the survival of your business.