One of the biggest questions that was on everyone's lips on Wendnesday was "What the hell do we do now?'...
Prepare! Educate! Redesign! Evolve! The key to staying ahead of this and putting in the fight to make your business survive is being proactive enough to spend time doing these things.
1. Get educated on the laws + rules surrounding staffing for both the employer and employee. No-one wants to lose great staff so work out a plan on how to keep your awesome peeps on your team.
2. Preserve your cash at all costs at the moment. This will look different for every business but the bottom line is....stop spending the cash as we head into really unprecedented times. While I say this, I absolutely encourage you to support small business as much as possible. This is more important than ever before. The big chains will likely survive but the little guy won't without you walking in their door or supporting them as their business evolves to get through this.
3. Talk to your team of professionals - lawyers, accountants, financial advisers, etc. If you don't have a team, find a team yesterday. If you need a team and can't find a team, chat to us and we'll see if we can help you.
4. The only way to combat these new times is to redesign and evolve your business. Is your website up to date? Are you socials working? What can you do to keep your business moving? Get a whiteboard marker, brainstorm on your windows at home and don't rub it off for a few days while you consider all your options.
5. You need to work out your worst case scenario from a cashflow perspective, get out the spreadsheet and get started now. This will help you determine what you need to do to help you survive in a few weeks, or months. Everyone's scenario is different but everyone needs to know what their scenario looks like.
6. As much as you would rather pull your teeth out, you need to start having those hard discussions and asking those really hard questions.