What the pandemic has nothing to do with your business challenges
As part of my job, I meet startup owners, small business investors and aspiring entrepreneurs among others. At Sisir Devkota Strategic Services, we provide a free trial of our programs before clients can decide to forge a partnership with us. After detailed exchanges with more than fifty clients; mostly functioning with the help of cutting edge technology and modern tools, I had a striking revelation of how the illusion of market uncertainties was playing a rather adverse role in their collective ability to make informed decisions. I can sum up three different scenarios of how the cycle of confusion recurs; especially in developing economies.
THE MACRO-ECONOMIC CONVICTION
Almost 90% of my clients are doing the right things; albeit in an unconscious way. They have the right product(s), they have a passionate affair with social media marketing and the B2C understanding is tremendous. Despite, add to that; the pandemic scenario has fueled a lot of insecurities regarding how the market would behave once everything resumes. Or, what a resumption even means, compared to what the world was like, prior to the pandemic. I have been asked this question more often than not, "How can my business relaunch while the economy is slowing down, unemployment has soared and spending has diminished". There has been too much stress on how macro-economic circumstances would directly determine business outcomes. This might be true but it should not be the looking glass for all forms of value-oriented entities. Market activity will recommence, there will be new forms of buying and selling. The answer is straight forward--Dynamism is a trait that separates sustainable businesses from others. It always has been the case. Next time you read the news; evaluate how it affects your business, not how it affects players in the market.
THE DISTRIBUTOR TRAP
Entrepreneurship is accessible; largely due to the increasing network of facilitating clusters of "wholesalers". The distributor's trap is true for almost all sellers with competitive products. Perceived risks are diminished while sellers are more or less convinced of making enough sales through trusted channels. The entire romantic picture is a trap. Wholesalers determine the amount of vendors they wish to deal with; in effect also determining the market prices at will. Sellers swim in the cash tide until a pandemic kind of a pause halts everything. Imagine a pandemic situation where wholesalers whiff vendors to get rid of stocks in order to distribute new batch of products. From the seller's perspective, it is doubts galore. Suddenly, the market introduces competitors that were not visible before, prices sink below a comfortable point. I have faced the question too many times recently, "Have you worked with a similar business like ours. Do we stand out?" This is how distributors play with the minds of a stable and performing entrepreneur. Next time your competitors behave strangely; do not question your product and your entrepreneurial effort.
THE CASH FLOW IGNORANCE
This is the classical problem that consultants face with almost all clients. More than ever, I have personally observed that investors have realized albeit in a sub-conscious manner; how they have been allocating resources in-appropriately. The cash flow problem is too easy to ignore but leads to unforgivable consequences. The Covid-19 lockdown has effectively halted production and sales for most of the small businesses; resulting in an emancipated realization of how there might have been a cash flow problem from the beginning. During the past few months, investors have been pondering upon how they never realized an investment that was unnecessary. Next time you feel like you have skipped a process in your dealings, do not ignore it. Chances are that there is an inherent issue of cash flow. The pandemic is not to blame for all your problems.