In order to survive, businesses need to build a culture of resilience that acknowledges the pandemic but doesn’t feel completely defeated by it.
While it may seem difficult at the time, it is vital to stay positive and identify areas of your business that may be better performing than others. These areas may be out of your comfort zone, but making the best of a bad situation can often be the saving grace of any business under pressure.
Dissect your business structure
The Hospitality sector is a great example of dissecting a traditional business structure to withstand change. Many businesses have had no choice but to switch to home deliveries and re-structure menus, even cafes, to keep the cash ticking over. These simple adjustments have kept thousands of businesses afloat, with many planning to keep these changes as permanent additions to their services.
Your team needs to understand how each change will contribute to the end game, and for them to understand what success looks like. Treating changes like mini-projects, with clearly marked out goals, will help your team to come together and support each other one step at a time.
Work on your business, not in your business
As a leader, it’s important to spend time working on your business, rather than in your business. By properly planning and working on your business from an objective point of view, you’ll be able to better understand your marketplace, which is a fast track towards growth. Set aside a regular time-slot, a morning or even a whole day, to focus on your business.
Attack this when your mind is most clear, and be strict on having no distractions or meetings during this time. Address the main pressure points of your business in small, bite-size chunks and focus on your problem areas first. This could be anything from cashflow to staff training or even doing in-depth research into your competitors.
It is important to remember that you will only get out what you put into your business. Focusing on tasks that will have the biggest, positive outcome will ensure you are using this time efficiently.
Keep communications clear
If you’re a family business, clear communication can sometimes be tricky to achieve, since it’s tempting to fall back into old habits and routines.
Different family or team members will have different approaches to money and risk, so it’s vital that everyone is aware of what is going on in the business. Design safe and open environments for the family to talk about these issues, and in particular, times when the business may not be performing as well as you’d hoped. This applies also for close management teams, where decisions can be emotionally fuelled in times of crisis.
Be cash-smart
Once a month, your businesses should hold a meeting with all key team members about cashflow. As sales and costs fluctuate continuously, this meeting is a chance to re-forecast in response to changing conditions sometimes out of your control.
It is key to have multiple options at all times, which may even mean borrowing more than you need, and at times when you don’t need it. You can use your “working time” to research seasonal patterns in your industry sector, and analyse the market to identify trends, enabling you to plan months or years in advance.
Even if your cashflow is currently in a good place, get into the habit now of always seeking more. Automated tools or an external expert in this field can help with this, and all key team members should be educated on how and why these tools are critical to your business’s success.
Troy Constance, CEO, SproutAg
