Getting Back to Business – ‘My Job’

I keep getting asked the same question, how do you get your business back on track after a global pandemic… Sounds easy enough to answer right!? Well we all know it is not, after we have had to learn to accept that this pandemic has wreaked financial havoc across the globe, leaving a wave of destruction for small businesses in its path. Some parts of life will never be the same, lives have been lost, companies bankrupted, and jobs and employment obliterated. The future is bleak and uncertain and its certainly hard to find the opportunities in the midst of such unrest.

One thing that is true is that fact that we are not alone, businesses big and small, companies rich or poor, industries far and wide have all been ravaged by this unexpected pandemic and nowhere has escaped this unharmed. Everyone must now find a way to recover and rebuild. I guess now it’s a choice, and its going to be hard, its going to take more effort and more strength than you had before but you have done it, once right? There will be opportunities from this, optimists will grab them with open arms and a clear mind, the pessimists will not see them or choose to ignore. I’m certainly never going to deliberately profiteer from the misery and devastation of others but we have to find a way through the dark clouds and work to the hope of a brighter future and a more stable business that creates employment and prosperity once again.

It has been ‘my job’ in our business to consider what the recovery might look like once the economy begins to re-stabilise and return to a state of normality so a new normal can be established across each industry. Its ‘my job’ to try and predict the future and create a sustainable plan for what that future might look like. My first challenge is to measure the damage and create my benchmark/starting point. We have had to cut marketing budgets, re allocate resources, plug cash holes, and prop up our cash flow. None of these ‘reactive’ short term solutions are sustainable and its back to steering the ship instead of plugging holes in it and bailing out the water.

Over the past 10 weeks we have considered what funding we will need to recover as like so many businesses we do not have a large amount of surplus cash sitting around waiting to be used in a global pandemic. Its no weakness to ask for financially help and support at a time like this and its super important to ascertain what your business is entitled too. What I have quickly come to realise is that this funding is not handed out on a plate. It’s ‘my job’ to find a way and climb whatever mountain that is needed to help our business survive and hopefully thrive the other side of this.

I have been focused on my business plan and what needs to change, or to be fine-tuned within in a new economic climate. I’ve heard the word PIVOT a lot recently, that makes sense, it is finding a way to make your business suit the environment it operates in. Previously we operated in an environment that relied heavily on foot fall and physical bricks and mortar infrastructure. Now we have had to digitalise our business to accommodate the businesses working differently and innovate an industry that has previously relied so heavily on service and not on simplicity and ease of order.

Creating a new ecommerce website (launching very soon!) and a digital marketing strategy was a risky and costly exercise but if there is anything I’ve learned in my time in business it’s the brave that prosper and that risk taking is an inevitable when you’re out in the big wide world of business. I’ve had to train myself, upskill my capabilities to accommodate the changes in my company and its future plans, that I had to find a way to write in the first place! I have had to learn to do work that my currently furloughed team would be busy doing with ease and confidence.

Its been ‘my job’ to analyse the market, measure the competition, research the industry, and pretty much predict the future and it’s fair to say, during a time where the operational side of our business has been closed, I don’t think I’ve ever worked harder! I have tried to find the gaps in the market that are critical to expanding our customers in the future. Incremental changes over the last ten weeks will have added up to a movement that should mean we are leaner, smarter, wiser for approaching a new normal and edging ahead of our competitors but without a sound business plan there is no measurability for that, so that’s what I created. When we rebuild our business, we need to act fast to ‘reclaim’ our customers and remember that we didn’t change, its just our circumstances and our situation that have. We have reactivated our marketing (not that we ever really stopped) and increased our communication strategy, using every way to keep our customers and my network updated. Loyalty helps a lot in business and its ‘my job’ to make our customers one of my top priorities.

Emerging possibilities are there for the taking and its ‘my job’ to recognise an opportunity and seize it. Its been ‘my job’ to develop a timeline to rebuild and create a mobilisation plan to get this model off the ground. Of course I knew things had to change; I knew we had to find new ways to do business. What I didn’t expect is just how different this might look. When we opened back up on the 1st of June, we had 6 areas of our business that we planned to re- start and I called it our ‘mobilisation plan’. It sounded grand and exciting (and I deliberately positioned it this way) but in reality, it was coming out from under the rock and stretching our legs back in the big wide world of business. 4 of those plans were brand new areas of business for us to tackle. 2 were a change in our existing business operations and a diversification from the work we had grown so accustomed too. Needless to say, it worked! Thinking outside of the box and revolutionising the way we do business, has had its benefits and we have been able to open our doors and hold our heads high in a world where everyone is understandably scared to step outside.

An example of this transition is our mobile sandwich van, our sites didn’t have staff working but we knew there was business out there, a mobile vehicle solves this problem as it obviously moves to where the business is and almost epitomises the point of mobilisation.

The business future now needs to be leaner, more efficient with a frugal, caution mindset. What have I learned? What will I change? How has this changed my thinking and my business? My biggest lesson is that we are still needed, our customers still need us, and our community still need us. We may have metaphorically hit rock bottom, but we have the potential to rebuild our business smarter, stronger, and more efficient.

We can turn a disaster into an opportunity and its ‘my job’ to make it happen and make our business rise from the ashes once again!