I offer thanks to my good friend Nick Bell for this week’s article. He recommended a film called “The Big Short” – based on a true story from the 2008 recession and it got me thinking about how well set up our businesses are to cope with change and situations outside our control. My guess is that many of us aren’t, and we have to learn from past events, and we cannot continue to keep doing things the way we have always done them – that mentality really does not work anymore.
We are entering a change in our lives that will have a massive impact on pretty much every business and every individual alive, and some of these changes will always be there so like it or not, we have to go with them, and not try and fight them.
Let’s look at how things have changed in the UK since 23 March 2020 when the country entered the lockdown process. Personal hygiene became more important than it ever had been before. Businesses who were reliant on face to face contact with their clients and customers had to think and act quickly as to what they would do and how they would do it – if they were able to do anything at all. Some were not able to continue to conduct business. Social distancing entered our lives which put a complete halt to the hospitality industry, and any business that had clients in this sector. Our personal finances were affected. Business finances were affected.
Moving into the future, how long will it take some businesses to recover – if they recover at all? How many businesses will go out of business because they were not set up correctly and did not learn from past events? How many businesses are thinking about increasing costs to compensate – this will be a very bad move in my opinion.
Figures have been reported that up to a million small businesses could disappear – from a figure pre COVID of around 4.5 million. This is a massive hit. Some businesses will disappear because they have never changed. They are still doing the same thing in the same way as they have always done. They refuse to change. They refuse to do things differently. They refuse to evolve. These business owners will have created their own problem, and COVID wiull be just the final nail in the coffin
We all need to change. We need to do things differently to they way we have been doing things in the past. We are not going to be able to solve these problems on our own. We need professional help, support, and guidance. For those of us who attend networking events, we know the people who can help us. We must use their services and not continue trying to be all things to all people. For those businesses we know who never attend networking events, they don’t have the same contacts as those of us who do, so please pass this article on to them, and make them aware there are people who can help. Let those of us who can, try and help as many businesses as we can and keep the economic wheels of the UK turning.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing day after day and expecting different results. We are not going to get from where we are to where we want to be with the same mentality that has got us to where we currently are. We need to change. We need help. Please don’t become a statistic. Reach out for that help and lets make sure we can all help each other to ensure we all stay in business.
As a business owner with over 30 years of business ownership experience, I – along with my countless business contacts – am able to help with any issue you may have and to be able to make sure your business is better prepared for the next “What if” that will come along to potentially stop us in our tracks.
Richard Knight – Lionheart Business troubleshooting – richard@lionheartmanagement.co.uk
This article was first published on LinkedIn by Richard Knight on 08/06/2020