Reflecting on Learnings in Lockdown

It was great to be back on the panel a year on for the Marketing Derby’s Business Live. Reflecting on last year, when Lindsey, John and the team kindly invited me on one of the first panels, this was the 7 April 2020 – and what a difference a year makes! I have fond memories (not so) of the computer freezing and not being 100% sure whether everyone could hear me but ploughed on regardless.

Similarly, to Kath, to be honest days and this year has turned into a blur. At Vibrant we have altered significantly, whilst we have worked from the office on occasions in between the lockdowns and worked on a rota basis restricting the amount of people in the office, it will be nice to get all of us in the same room which has happened yet for us as we have recruited during the pandemic.

We heard from Kavita that she was looking at introducing more of a flexible working environment to foster her team, and no doubt bring with it trust and loyalty, and I can see this being something that will happen throughout a lot of organisations which can work remotely. For us I can see this flexi-working continuing and having a base is still fundamentally important.

Bringing on staff throughout this pandemic and retaining the culture has been something that I imagine all of those who have recruited have had a challenge of. This is something that is incredibly important for Ian and I at Vibrant and its how we can encourage this to develop and to nurture it whilst we’re all working from our homes.

For me, I’ve enjoyed seeing more into our clients, my colleagues, and connectors lives. We all know more about each other’s homes, family, struggles, we’re all human, getting to know people is what is important to us, that connectedness! So its surprisingly we kept this so separately before, although crashing zoom calls, or WW3 in the background of a call wasn’t what I was hoping for as an introduction to who I am outside of work, it’s nice to see the there is an attitude of acceptance of this. I guess this is very Brene Brown, we’re turning up, we’re being vulnerable, we’re fighting in the arena.

Now whilst I appreciate that there have been excluded communities. The amount of Rishi announcements has been relentless. Support, government guidance and changes to and bringing out new legislation has been an incredible, I have to admit both being excited, but also dreading another Rishi announcement and the work it would entail in trying to get to the bottom of what this would mean for business owners.

This support is here as well now, Furlough will be here until September and we still have time to plan and to utilise this to retain those key members of staff as we hopefully see a hive of activity across the summer months as the road map sees us moving to pre COVID times. Today is the last day for CBILS and BBL and in fact we have a client who were supporting through this application now for refinancing their HP agreements, plus debtor book lending and a separate loan too.

On the 7 April 2020 when I was on the panel, I was reminding people to switch of their Direct Debit if they wanted to defer their VAT payments, and now we’re at that point that that liability would have been deferred to until tomorrow. However, there is now the ability to defer this into 11 equal instalments over 2021-22 instead.

On that panel last year, I brought with me my 5 top tips of surviving through the early phase of the pandemic. They all surrounded forecasting budgeting and planning both personally for you and your business!

The first step most businesses will have already done, reviewed through all of their costs and identified whether they are needed, and whether they are getting the right return on investment for other costs.

Hopefully now, as business owners you have now taken the steps to forecast cash. Don’t stop this. Keep this in your tool kit as a needed tool for helping run your business. You are now ensuring you have different saving pots so you can make those key decisions better as to whether investment in staff and kit is possible and make more informed decisions! You know when you are going to have pinch points, and need funding, or you need to drive more revenue and create yourself new sales targets.

In fact, hell, you are even analysing all those new activities you are doing to ensure that they’re making you money, rather than costing you money. No one wants to be a busy fool; we’ve seen businesses streamline and actually came out of this year with reduced sales but with more profits.

Businesses don’t tend to fail on the way into a recession they fail on the way out, and there has been a lot of support out there to nurture and ensure that businesses can remain open so we need to be ensuring that we are able to make the most of this and the new roadmap to ensure our businesses are starting on the best foot, and cash rich businesses do not fail. Businesses with incredible sales can fail, just because they are cash starved. On the contrary businesses that are struggling but have investors that will support them can continue. It’s all about the cash. Cash is King!

I cannot stress how fundamental it is to get it all plotted out, the grants that have been received as a lifeline are also taxable income. So, remember to plot in when your corporation tax will be payable. Also factor in when you need to pay your ongoing VAT, plus anything that you have deferred to pay at a later date.

I’m very stoic if not optimistic and I think we can take this opportunity and come back better, challenge pre COVID times and look to do things better!! My key learnings to take forward are:

• Let’s keep that human approach which has been so warming to see
• Let’s continue to support local, and build on our community, but not close the doors to global, as there are of course more opportunities out there and with IT as it is now has never been so easy to work with people throughout the world
• Let’s remember our why, why are we doing what we’re doing, we’ve had time to reflect, why did you set up your business, and are you now feeding a beast that it has become and it’s running you?
• Let us not stop diversifying, mixing it up, offering new things, and challenging what our customers want so we can provide it in the best way, this challenge has seen new businesses forming this year, and also businesses altering and doing things that their customers want – some online experiences supported by physical presence, mix of services, new products.

Adam brought a quote ‘Life doesn’t stop when terrible things happen’ in fact I think we can do one and actually improve on pre-COVID times, let’s take these challenges and opportunities available and come back fighting, with your cash flow, budgeting and understanding your numbers in your armoury!

You can watch it back here if you missed it 22. ONE YEAR ON ... APPLYING THE LEARNING - 30th March 2021 #TalkingBusinessLIVE - YouTub