Do You Have a Recession Proof Business?

Why is it that so many businesses are struggling to cope with today's pandemic? For about 93% of the companies out there, it's all about how are they going to survive? The reality is any recession, like it or not, readdresses the imbalance in the economy. There are many people in the marketplace today that shouldn't be trading, and they have no right to be trading.

 There is a saying that "any idiot can trade when things are good." It doesn't mean that the people are idiots, but it's so easy to enter a market when there's a boom, and all they're doing is jumping on the bandwagon and riding the wave. Eventually, that wave dissipates, it goes kaput. Then what do people do? 

If you don't have a wave to ride and you cannot swim, you will drown, and right now, many people are drowning. Many people are drowning because they do not know the fundamentals of how to run a business.

They know the fundamentals of how to trade. They know the fundamentals of how to do the job, but that is not necessarily the job of the entrepreneur. Most entrepreneurs are like technicians, and Michael E. Gerber beautifully highlighted this in his bestselling book, E-Myth Revisited. Whereas, instead of doing the technician's job, most business owners need to spend their time doing the business owner's job. It's learning how to be an entrepreneur, learning how to be a business owner, and more importantly, understanding all the fundamentals that go with that. The worst thing you can do if you own a transportation company is to have a trucking license because if a driver does not show up for work, it is way too easy to drive that truck yourself. 

No one was prepared for the Coronavirus pandemic to shut down businesses globally. One day you're trading, and the next day you're told you can no longer trade. To get that news is devastating. For many entrepreneurs, it sent them into a frenzied panic. It's like being a rabbit caught in the headlights.

 Most entrepreneurs felt that way because they haven't got a frame of reference to deal with the situation. They cannot say, "Okay, we're going into this stage; this is how I deal with it." They don't have a plan. They don't have the experience. The reality is that most businesses out there are under ten years old and therefore have never experienced a sudden downturn.

Many of my clients are finding market conditions harsh, but most of them have not struggled to get finance. The banks are giving them money, and they're giving them money without the necessity of personal guarantees. The reason they're doing that is that they're confident that these people know what they're doing. They're looking at the business plans, and the business plans make sense. They're having conversations with the entrepreneur, and the entrepreneur understands cash, they know how their cash needs to work.

They can articulate what they're doing; they're producing a plan for when they come out of this. These entrepreneurs are using this as an opportunity to move forward. Many are looking at how they can expand their business today because they've done the work beforehand. They've done the learning, they've done the education piece, and they've learned all the stuff they didn't know. For them, in this scenario, it's not difficult. It's not if they come out of it, or when they come out of it, but more importantly, how they want to come out of it. 

What are you doing with your time right now? There are so many people out there putting on free webinars and other training events. Given the fact that there are 5.6 million SME businesses in the U.K. alone, why do so few people use this downtime to educate themselves? Why is it that so many business owners are not taking the time to work on the stuff that they don't understand, don't know, and that they can actually learn with a bit of application?

Most entrepreneurs were not great in school and use this as an excuse. However, your past does not determine your future. There are so many different ways of learning today; how can we be using our past schooling as an excuse? "But, I'm dyslexic.", often comes up. That's no longer a barrier as we have got YouTube, podcasts, and other great resources.

We no longer have an excuse not to learn. One of my favorite Jim Rohn quotes is, "Don't wish for less problems, wish for more skills." Now think about that for a moment. It's not about wishing that your problems were smaller.

Your problems are what they are. You're always going to have problems in business. You can't get away from that. The only thing you can do about it is to make sure that your solutions are far more significant and more comprehensive, so when you do have a problem, it's not an issue for you. You are well equipped actually to make things happen, to make the change, to plan forward, and to move forward.

 You've got to take this whole Corona situation as an opportunity. It's an opportunity for you to go back, now that things have slowed down and rework your business. You've got to think, who do I need to be in the new tomorrow, and what would my business need to look like in the new tomorrow? You might not have the answer within, but you can get help. There is help out there. So many people are saying right now, "I can't afford help.", yet I know so many coaches that are giving their time and resources for free to help business owners. Still, people are not taking advantage of the opportunity.

If you want to get through this challenging season and not just survive, but actually thrive and build a stronger, more sustainable business, get yourself the help that's available. See what people are offering. Take on board the free resources available to you, the free resources that can help you learn.

There are so many coaches and professionals out there waiting for you to get in touch.

Don't wait, don't hesitate. Just get out there and speak to these coaches and professionals. Give something a shot if it's free, what have you got to lose apart from your business? Nothing. Right now, we're in unprecedented times. I thought that 2008, 2009 would rewrite the whole economic playbook, and it did. I never expected to see a new challenge in my lifetime. I thought, yeah, we'll have another recession, but it would be just another recession that we've always had the typical sort of 12 to 18-month period, then we're out of it.

 Yet here we are again facing another world changer. A new playbook must be created, and you need to create that now. You need to create that playbook starting today before coming out of this season because if you try to play in tomorrow's economy in the new tomorrow using yesterday's thinking and yesterday's rules, you will not survive. You will probably hang on there for a while, but eventually, it will consume you and take you out.

If you want help finding a coach, whether it be myself or someone else, get in touch and I will introduce you to the right person. You can a discovery call with me using this link 

https://bookme.name/boolkah.

I'm giving away a ton of free resources and want to help you if you're going to help yourself. Below are links to resources that can help you.

My YouTube Chanel covering loads of business topics

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXn1EOlVVgH7c5ppWQeFjWQ?view_as=subscriber

My Podcast Chanel covering loads of business topics

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/business-owners-entrepreneurs-podcast-peter-boolkah/id1196932024

10 Costly Recruitment Mistakes and How to Avoid Them! Web Event 

https://event.webinarjam.com/register/2/4v4p0bg

10 Costly Cash Flow Mistakes and How to Avoid Them! Web Event

https://event.webinarjam.com/register/1/7v4gqb7