How to navigate your small business in the most difficult environment in living memory

• Lessons we hoped to have learnt from this period
  • The importance of having cash reserves
  • The importance of having equity in property to access in extreme cases
  • Keeping your ATO compliance up to date
  • Knowing your financials in accounting software
  • Having good relationships with key employees
  • Being flexible and adaptable
  • Having very good relationships with landlords
  • Not being too heavily leveraged with loans
  • Having great databases of your clients to keep them informed and connected
  • The government is not your enemy
  • Tax is for the needy. That may be you now
• Steps to take to survive
  • Keep calm
  • Avoid rash decisions
  • Last cost to cut is business development  including marketing
  • Get financially literate
  • Understand what you are entitled to from government assistance initiatives. There’s quite a lot. One of my clients will be getting $250K over the next 6 months
  • Surround yourself with business experts
  • You used to be too busy to work on your business. Now you have time, even though cash might be tight
  • Keep communicating with your key employees if they are on reduced payments, hours or even contact. You want them to be on your side
  • You already would have become frugal and your overall living costs are lower. Your break-even is lower. You need to know your break-even number all the time and how it changes. You don’t need as much from your business for now
  • Learn how to market yourself more than you ever have before
  • Need to understand that this is like a Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend. There are 3 days – Practice-Qualifying-Race. We are in Qualifying now. You need to be at the front row of the grid for when the Race starts or you will struggle to recover quickly
• Steps to take to thrive
  • Understand that this is a great opportunity for you to shine. Many will spend most of the time feeling sorry for themselves and celebrating the Govt assistance they have received. Successful people will flourish
  • Be positive. People will be attracted to doing business with you. Doesn’t matter what industry you are in
  • Keep thinking on how you can modify your business. Have you seen how many businesses quickly adjusted to online? They were forced to think outside the box. What else can your skills or resources deliver to the marketplace? Have a successful business coach/mentor/advisor help you
  • It may even be appropriate to look at what else you would prefer to do in business? There will be cheap businesses for sale, cheaper rents in better locations and plenty of good employees available to hire
  • Thriving could mean having a greater share of your marketplace as competitors fall over. You could even buy them out at a ridiculous bargain. Have an experienced advisor help you negotiate. I’ve helped many buy businesses
  • Understanding that whilst there is a general perception that business is more risky than having a job – ask the employee who lost their job and now has an uncertain future as to when they will resume earning serious money. They had one customer, their boss and they just lost that customer