What to do as a Business Owner when you hit a brick wall

Beckie called me in a panic. She’d lost 3 big clients due to 2019 budget cutbacks and that equated to 60% of her forecasted revenue. Her reaction was to go into hibernation and she was planning for and focussing on the worst possible situation. She felt as though her world and business were ending. She was frantically looking a cost-cutting and shrinking the business as much as possible to survive. 

Here is the 5-step process we put in place to turn her around in just 17 days…

1.    Stop focussing on the problem

What we focus on is what we work towards creating, and we’re doing it every day without realising it. If we focus on lack, we create more lack. Focus on scarcity, things become scarcer. The subconscious is a powerful thing (in fact 40 times faster than your conscious mind and 1 million times more powerful) and we need to harness it’s power to resolve the problem, not to create more of the problem. It cannot be controlled, but it can be influenced. 

Cashflow is key so making some immediate decisions that buy us time is a sensible thing to do, but I have never seen a small business get themselves out of the shit by focusing on cost cutting for any length of time. New clients, sales and more revenue is what will get you back up and running and, once the immediate issue is stemmed, this is where we need to get back to and quickly.

2.    Get clarity on the situation

In most cases I find the situation is not as bad as we initially think. As humans we are built to look for threats to keep us “safe” and often have a tendency towards catastrophising. We start panicking about what might be rather than what actually is. Getting clarity on the situation is key. What’s really happening right now? What are the actual numbers and metrics? What are the timescales and how much time to do we have to resolve the problem? What actually needs to happen for the problem to be resolved? If you’re too emotional to work this out for yourself, seek help from someone you trust to go through it with you.  

3.    Get Back to Your Goals

If you’re a good goal-setter, when you set them you were full of possibility and potential. Nothing has changed, you’ve just hit a bump in the road. It’s just an obstacle, something to overcome on your journey to achieving your goals. Getting back to your goals or vision or whatever it is you have laid out when you set up this year gets you back and focussed on where you’re going and away from focusing on all the things you’re trying to avoid. What we focus on grows. One of the reasons goal-setting is so powerful. I could give you 10 more if you’d only ask me…. 

4.    Rebuild confidence

When we hit these walls, and you will regularly if you’re a business owner pushing for growth, our confidence often gets hit and sometimes hard. We start questioning things: our ability to run a business, whether we’re delivering any value whatsoever, whether we are in fact an imposter that doesn’t know what we’re doing after all, whether we should jack it all in and get a proper job. No? Just me then….. J

It’s important that we regain our sense of self before we go out and see clients as they will pick up on your energy and it will affect your ability to sell. What Beckie did was pull together a document that covered the following points: Who we are, why we rock and who we’ve helped to rock. Getting back to the evidence of what makes you awesome is a great way to push better information into your subconscious and give yourself and much needed confidence boost. 

5.    Sell…!

If you’re looking to resolve short term cashflow problems, you need to focus on short game strategies. Selling, closing, bringing in revenue is the key. This is where the lion’s share of your time and energy need to be focussed. I’ll say it again, what we focus on grows! 

a.    Start by looking at any immediate opportunities you have in your pipeline and put a plan in place for moving these forward.

b.   Then speak to all your existing clients to see if they have any additional work or referrals for you. 

c.    Look at what’s worked from a marketing perspective to drive sales in the past, pick the one or two things that have delivered the most results and spend time every day driving leads. Plan this time out carefully the night before so you’re efficient on the day and don’t do too many things or you’ll dilute the effectiveness of all of them.

d.    Have someone in your corner you can share your successes with. This will keep you motivated and focused.

Implementing this strategy, Beckie transformed her business in 17 days! She increased her revenue by 56% and is completely back on track to achieve her 2019 goals. 

I’ve seen this situation turn around quickly so many times. This call with Beckie was one of four in the same month with really similar problems and every one of them has come good and is back on track. The crux is to get the right focus, the right attitude and right actions in place, and then execute like a demon. 

With Brexit on the horizon and a recession threatening, it’s going to be a challenging time for business owners. We need to remember we are agile and can adapt to changes in the markets and economy as they come at us. We need to make sure we do the work to stay ahead of the game and keep our mindset attuned to the opportunities and connections available and stay focussed on the goals we are looking to achieve. It will be hard with the media pushing its agenda but if we stick together and support each other we’ll ride out the storm.  

As always, please contact me at [email protected].