My game plan for survival

I was feeling a bit lost last evening, my morale was low and was looking for some motivation. As a small business owner, these are challenging times for me. I was looking at the cash reserves and the runway that we have to survive this crisis. Honestly, I had a lot of difficult questions to answer. 

But the only consolation is the fact that it is not just my business which will suffer from this situation. Every business is going through the same crisis regardless of the size of operations. There are a few ventures which will be shaken entirely, like companies in travel and leisure, hospitality, airlines and allied industries supporting the ecosystem. I am just mentioning the obvious ones. I am sure there are a lot more industries which will face the brunt. However, I would want to talk about Small Enterprises here because I can relate to them better.

I want to share my experience of how I overcame the economic slowdown (read as a recession) between November 2008 and December 2009. I am a staffing entrepreneur with 16 years of experience, and during the economic downturn of 2009, I barely had five years of entrepreneurial experience. I am not saying this is a magic formula and will work for every business and work in the current scenario as well. But my point is if I could do it once, I can certainly do it once again. So, what are the things that worked in my favour;

My operational costs were low- Despite having nine staff, my monthly operational costs were low. Some of the friends who also run a business felt that I was lucky that my operational costs were low. Having said that, we had times when I paid my staff their salaries beyond the 10th of the calendar month.

I had modest aspirations- My primary objective was to ensure that my company survived the crisis. Our turnover the previous year was close to INR 1 Crore, and I aimed to achieve 75% of that during the slowdown, and I managed to do so.

Took whatever that came my way- I was ready to take up whatever work that came by. I was looking only at the finishing line and was determined to achieve the targets that we had set for ourselves. Of course, the first target was to fight for survival.

An energetic team- I had a high energy team who stood by my side and understood the need of the hour. We worked for five straight months without taking a day off. Certainly not an exaggeration. We worked in this beast mode between February and June 2009. Of course, we had a lot of fun while doing this. 

I had supportive customers- Two of my large customers (Both fortune 100 companies) were incredibly supportive. They showed faith in us and gave us new work that we hadn't done before. We were able to delight them with better than expected results. 

One more important factor which helped me overcome the crisis was my age and my family.

I was only 27 and was just married. My wife had a stable day job, and I had the home front covered. My wife supported me during the downturn, and she ensured that I came out of the crisis unscathed. However, I was always confident of finding a job in case things didn't work out (This was what I kept telling my family :-), honestly I never wanted to work for someone and I always wanted to be a job creator)

I am going to use this learning to overcome the current crisis, and I am not sure if it will work this time around. But I am ready to put up a brave face and fight fiercely for survival.

And finally my 2 cents to all the small business owners out there;

• Go all in- Fight like there is no tomorrow.
• Ignore what the mainstream thinks- Small companies require different thinking and the mindset with which you need to operate is very different. So if you are seeking advice, know from whom you are going to ask.
• Aim for small wins-Sometimes we have those huge wins and huge losses. Those are the ones we tend to dwell on. But look at the balance sheet of any business, and you'll see that the bulk of a company's income comes from the small wins. They come from regular clients who pay repeatedly. The small victories are far more valuable than those occasional home runs. Aim to create consistent income. Unbelievably, this will mitigate your losses.
• Be ambitious and stay hungry- The whole essence of entrepreneurship is to believe that you can do things which others cant and be able to go out there and give your best every day. 

Finally, I would like to sign off by quoting my role model's lines- "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish"

This too, shall pass...