Regardless of business type or sector the companies that I am seeing cope the best are those that have a plan in place and continue to look to the future and not just sit in the now being reactive. These resilient businesses have the following in place and form part of their plans:
They know why they are in business - a purpose
They have a vision of what success looks like and where they want to be in X years.
They have been wise with their profits and have distributed them in all of the following areas in descending order
Investing back into the business
A rainy day fund
Bonus to staff
Returns to shareholders
They have a strategic plan that gets them from where they are to where they want to be (the vision)
They remain flexible, but overall stick to the plan and do not get tempted by shiny objects. (they stick to their purpose)
Using the above principles you can still produce a plan even in tough times. Of course for some of you it is an amazing opportunity. What I do know is that it won’t stay like this, so make sure you survive or thrive over this period.
Plan for worst and hope for the best - we hope to be out of lockdown in 8 weeks, but what if it is 16 weeks?
Cut deep - if you aren’t sure if you need a staff member, furlough them now
Keep communicating with your staff
Keep communications open with clients, prospects and suppliers
Keep talking to your lenders, landlords and HMRC
Ensure your systems are cyber security resilient
Look at your opportunities - I have seen a business change from b2c to b2b and has massively increased sales
Celebrate your successes, no matter how small - keep up the morale
There is a lot of talk out there saying that we are going to have the deepest recession that has ever been known. Of course we do not know the outcome at this stage. There are some promising signs coming from China, with many businesses reporting that business is getting back to a new normal.
Our current times are being likened to a world war. After WWI we had the Roaring Twenties a period of massive economic growth in the West. After WWII there was a period called “the post war miracle”. Thirty years of unprecedented growth that not only saw the USA grow massively, but also West Germany and Japan, two countries that had been devastated. Do you have a plan in place to ensure that you are still around to take advantage of a possible economic bounce?
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