Some words of comfort to small business owners right now

I wrote this note to a group of 50 of my mentees (all female small business owners) last night, and they've said it really helped them - so I'm sharing here on Linked In too in the hope that it helps you.

Hello my valiant, bold, entrepreneurs,

I wanted to send you a note to check in and send some love your way. (And also tell you that I'm cleaning my surfaces at home on the half hour, that everyone is being asked to sanitise their hands as they walk in the front door.... Joking!! I'm sure you guys are getting five such emails from various organisations a day as well).

SO...

How are you?  

It's a very strangely uncertain time I know, and I can imagine there's an impact (or potential future impact) for each of you.

I'm sending you lots of love, strength, and whatever else you're in need of right now - especially if you've also got the challenge of working from home with the kids around.

It's most certainly not an easy time. However what I DO know about each and every one of you is that you can do hard things.  

You've proven that to me in many ways and many times before, and this is no exception.

We women are nothing if not resourceful and I truly believe that there is huge opportunity contained in the situation we find ourselves in right now.

It's an opportunity to really evaluate what's important to us.

To slow down a little and immerse ourselves more in what we're doing.

To take the option of not (for once) booking ourselves up to the eyeballs with social and business commitments.

I also thought it might be helpful to you right now to share the actions that I'm taking in my business:

1. Being militant about my self-talk and how I'm framing this situation to myself - particularly re. the effect it could have on my business.  This article was fascinating - "Strategy CEOs" are using words like "grow", "opportunity" and "buy". I'm telling myself 20 times a day that this is a massive fucking opportunity - and so it will be.

2. Pivoting like a mofo - I've created a table of what my clients will need more from me (online programs, membership groups), and less of me (in person speaking, live events) - and I've gotten laser clear on what I'm focusing my energies on over the coming months. So for corporates, that's a training program to help them transition to working remotely and for individuals, it's starting and growing my membership.

3. Cutting non-vital costs - everything is up for consideration right now. Not as I believe it's going to get super terrible, but this is as good an impetus as any to ensure I'm running my business as leanly as possible - then when the economy snaps back, I'll be pocketing more profit each month!

4. Serving my communities like never before - when my calendar is looking pretty quiet (and VERY close to home!), I'm doubling down on all the ways I can support, guide and love on my communities. So lots of Insta Stories, podcast plans and being able to reply personally to emails. The economy WILL bounce back - so this is a brilliant time to build insane trust capital and goodwill with our clients, and have all that love pay off commercially when life is more certain.

5. Relishing the opportunity for deep work - one of my friends sent me a message yesterday saying that pretty much all of her speaking (her core source of revenue) has been cancelled, however that she's quite looking forward to time to devote to "deep work", i.e: strategising, auditing what is/isn't working in our businesses, creating content... This is something of a forced hibernation - and the cute little squirrels who are tidying up their trees, cooking up new products and services and gaining momentum on plans will be riding high when life gets back to normal. I've found myself that even in the last two days, I've found so much more flow with my work - losing myself in what I'm doing rather than constantly watching the clock for where I need to be next. It feels like a real luxury to get to work like that.

6. Not postponing launches altogether - I've been working on a new brand that joins together my dots. It's kinda bigger than Ben Hur, and I had half decided to put it on hold for now. However in my monthly session with my business coach today, he instead suggested I take more of a "piecemeal" approach to it - i.e: not doing a big bang launch, but still keeping it front and centre of my medium-term strategy and gradually introducing elements of my plan, even if they're not branded as my new brand. The idea, he explained, was that it would set an intentionality for me that the future is bright. I loved that idea.

7. Monitoring the stories I'm telling myself about what my clients' behaviour will be - e.g: I realised I'd been telling myself that people probably wouldn't be wanting mentoring with me as much. When I bounced that off my coach, he said he's expecting his business to grow in this time - as clients (like me) will want/need to be more proactive than ever in their businesses. I realised that I have NO IDEA how/if the global situation will influence my clients' demand for what I offer, and I could actually even manifest a certain reality purely due to the stories I tell myself.

I hope that something I've shared here is helpful for you and your thinking around your business right now.

I really do believe that those who can create, adjust, stay positive and iterate quickly will do very well in this situation.

Big love to every one of you,

L x