The Coronavirus kills businesses - This is how we survive

Advice from one business owner to another - on dealing with a crisis like the Coronavirus

Are you ready for really tough times in your business, six weeks from now (or six days...)? For example, if the whole country is "shut down"...

The first coronavirus infection in Italy was recorded on 31 January 2020. It took them six weeks to go from one infection to shutting down the country. I hope it does not happen here. But we are working very hard right now to prepare our business, in case it does happen here.

Staffing and retrenchments

 If your sales drop off a cliff; are you ready and willing to retrench a third of your staff, three months from now? And to retrench half of the remaining staff three months after that. Are you emotionally prepared for your staff losing their income, and the impact of that on them and their families? While many of them are ill.

According to Robyn Hey of Robyn Hey Attorneys; "Often businesses do not have the basics in place to enable them to properly engage with staff when they are considering retrenchments. Do you have job descriptions for every person? Do you have a proper, legal, employment contract for every staff member? Do you know the correct process to follow when you are starting to think you might need to reduce staff numbers?"

Preserving your money

If you think that the economy will tank in the very near future, you need to hold on to your money so you have more "runway" and room to maneuver when the bad times come.

List your suppliers from biggest cost, to smallest. Start thinking on how you can negotiate better terms and longer payment periods with each of them.

Impossible to negotiate suppliers like Telkom and Vodacom? Now is the time to check if you don't have a phone or data accounts you can close. Or replace with a better deal at a better price.

Work through every single payment you are making, and find ways to delay payment, stop buying that specific item or service, renegotiate the prices and terms.

What parts of your business has a budget that you can cut to the bone immediately?

Negotiating with your landlord

You need to meet face to face with your landlord when you realise you might not be able to pay them. Do you have their address? Do you know which senior person to meet with? This is a conversation you don't have over the phone. 

Do you understand your rights if you can't pay your rent? Have you read your lease agreement, so you are clear on what your obligations are?

When the time comes, you will have to find a way to explain to the landlord, that if they push your business into bankruptcy, then neither they, nor you, will get paid. If they won't help you, are you prepared to move your business into your house or garage?

Maybe you already have an email in your inbox from your landlord... explaining how they are dealing with the virus. And ending with a paragraph along the lines of: "while we do understand that trading conditions might deteriorate... we are not in a position to offer any rental concessions at this time." Expect that kind of message from all your suppliers and banks.

Negotiating with your major suppliers

Most businesses have a small group of suppliers with whom they spent most of their money. We are in distance learning, which means our biggest bills are for paper, printing, books and telephony / internet.

You need to have a clear plan on how to negotiate with each of your big suppliers. And even though it will be impossible for you to predict when you will be able to pay them, they will want that certainty from you.

Lots of honest communications. To keep them properly informed.

Are you clear on what products and services you must absolutely keep on paying, because they are critical for your business to work each day?

What is your plan when your key suppliers stop supplying to you?

Fighting with your managers, staff, business partners, wife, husband, significant other

Now is the time when all your relationships will be tested to breaking point. Have you got at least one or two people where you can just blow off steam? Nobody is coming to save you. All eyes are on you.

Spend the least amount of time with negative people. Invest even more in your positive and honest colleagues. So you can feed each other positiveness.

And find a mentor to help you figure your way through this. Personally, when things are at their worst, I talk with our long term business coach Mignon Keyser. She has helped us through the worst of times. 

With her help we always learn something from the (bad) experiences... and that helps us build a stronger business for when things inevitably go wrong again in the future.

Building up a warchest while you still can - Making more money now, fast

Can you ramp up sales right now? There might be less than six weeks left to get decent sales. (There might be less than six days... There might be less than six hours...) And after that your sales might tank. 

More marketing, not less!

There might be very little time to increase your income. Now is the time for maximum effort, all hands on deck and all those crazy ideas to push up your sales while people are still buying your product.

What is the opportunity in all of this that you might be missing?

More effort on your current customers

Show them the love. So they stay with you. And pay you. How can you improve your relationship, services, offering for the customers you already have?

Action is better than No Action

When you see the tsunami coming; Act. Do something. Doing nothing is the most dangerous thing right now. If you "wait and see" you will be "waiting and seeing your ass!"

Part of this is arming yourself with facts. Deal with facts not rumours or guesses. That includes dealing with facts about your business.

Lastly...

Be safe. Be kind.