Facing a pandemic can be scary for everyone. For business owners, the unknowns can cause stress and even panic.
- Will my friends and family be safe?
- How long will this last? When will things get back to normal?
- What impacts will this have on my business? What about the economy?
No one has control over what the outcome of the coronavirus pandemic will be—all we can do is focus on what we do have control over.
As a drone entrepreneur, you have the chance to turn this downtime into an opportunity to better yourself, which will in turn better your business in the long run.
That’s why we’ve compiled a list of things you can do from the comfort of your home to develop your skills and knowledge.
Build your portfolio
Your portfolio is a beautiful, visual resume that you can hand to potential clients to prove that you are an experienced drone pilot.
No matter what industry you fly in, chances are, you can create a portfolio of your work that will impress clients.
If your business is centered around taking aerial photos and videos of real estate, use this time as an opportunity to edit photos and videos that you’ve previously taken and turn them into something stunning that will truly catch the eye of a potential buyer. Or, if you already have photos and videos that you are extremely proud of, take this opportunity to compile them into a digital portfolio.
If you fly your drone in the roofing industry to conduct safe and efficient inspections, some things you can do are: create a portfolio of the roofs you’ve surveyed, the reports you’ve created, and a cost-savings analysis for each project. Having documentation of each step of the process will allow future clients to visualize how you can help them fix their roof and save money.
If you create drone photos and videos for movies and television shows, put together a virtual gallery of your work for future clients to view.
As you can see, no matter what drone application your business focuses on, a portfolio is essential to display to the world that you’re a professional who knows their stuff.
Brush up on your professional skills
Many business owners, especially when they are first starting out, have to become somewhat of a “Jack of all trades” since they don’t yet have the resources to hire employees to help them get their business off the ground.
However, there may be certain business skills that you’ve been to invest time into developing—but you just haven’t had the chance.
Well, now is your chance! More likely than not, business has probably been slow over the past few weeks because of everything that’s going on. So, if you have the free time, why not take advantage of it?
Skills like networking (virtually, at least!), social media marketing, SEO, and accounting are always great skills to learn because they will help you grow your business.
Networking
Log on to LinkedIn and update your profile, write an article to share with the community, and just connect with people!
You know all those business cards you’ve collected over the past year? Remember all the people that you promised you’d follow up with? Dig through your purse, wallet, laptop bag—wherever you keep them—and look each person up on LinkedIn. Start a conversation with them. You never know who may be able to help you out in the future.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing can be one of your biggest tools right now. Staying connected with your social media followers and the people in your community is crucial right now. Being active on social media is a great way to keep your business’s presence alive. Even if you’re not booking jobs at the moment, keep posting photos and videos, funny updates about what you’re doing while you’re at home, and anything else you think your followers would like to see.
SEO
Search engine optimization (or SEO) is important to learn because, if you’re willing to put in the time and effort to optimize your content, search engines like Google will rank your content higher up in the search results. What that means is that, if your website is one of the first to appear in someone’s search results, there is a higher chance that they’ll see your website and click on it.
SEO ultimately helps your content get seen online, which will help drive more traffic to your website.
Accounting
Accounting is another necessary skill to become familiar with because it will help you run your company’s operations in a financially-sound way. Knowing how to ensure that you’re making more money than you’re spending is a crucial if you want to stay in business.
If you’re interested in strengthening your business development skills, be sure to check out websites like Udemy that have affordable online courses.
Practice with your drone
If you have a backyard that you can venture out to (or if you’re very confident in your indoor drone flight abilities), practicing with your drone can be a beneficial activity while you’re socially isolating yourself.
Even if you’re an expert drone pilot, it never hurts to sharpen your skills.
We’ve made a list of four things you can do to feel comfortable with your drone and confident in your ability to fly it: 1) practice, 2) practice, 3) practice, and 4) watch YouTube videos.
Practice, practice, practice
While we know it’s pretty self-explanatory, the best way to build your confidence in your drone abilities is to practice flying. Trying different maneuvers can help you get the hang of how the controls work.
Watch YouTube Videos
Watching someone else fly their drone and give tips on how to maneuver it could be really helpful, also. There are YouTube videos that teach you how to use each specific type of drone, so if you’re struggling with something or if you have a question about your drone, try checking out a few YouTube videos.
You can then use what you learned from YouTube and apply it to your own drone.
Learn a new way to use your drone
With all of this extra time on your hands, you could really take your drone skills to the next level by learning new drone applications.
Learning new skills will not only give you more knowledge and experience, but it could even help you expand the services that your business is able to provide.
Skills like aerial photography and videography can be used in many different industries, from real estate to television and film. Being able to capture breathtaking footage with your drone—and edit it to create a professional-looking finished product—is a critical contributing factor to your business’s overall success.
The ability to conduct roof inspections with a drone is another skill that is in high demand. Because manual roof inspections are so dangerous, the use of technologies like drones are making the roofing industry safer.
There are countless other opportunities for drone use in industries like agriculture, mining, and racing. If you have a job/industry that you think could benefit from drone integration, try Googling the name of that job/industry and “drones” and see if you can find anything cool and innovative that you could try.
If you’re interested in learning how to use your drone in a new way, be sure to check out our online courses (at a discounted price).
$50 off FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Exam Prep Course
$50 off Aerial Photo Pro
$150 off Aerial Video A to Z
$150 off Aerial Roof Inspection Pro
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