It was the winter of 1987 and my start-up company Winewear Fashions had cash flow problems. In fact, not only could I not take wages, but I hadn’t been able to pay bills for several months without putting cash into the business. I took a job on the side selling books door to door in Vancouver to pay for my room and board and fuel costs.
Owning the business made it appear as if I was successful, but the reality was somewhat different. Not only was I troubled that sales had stagnated, but I was severely burned out and was worried about how I was going to pay my shareholders back who had put up their money to invest in my vision of this fantastic product and company. It seemed that in that winter, time stood still and I doubted my ability to survive.
Time has stood still for me a number of times in my business career when I have been in the middle of intense struggle. When we go through tough times, what might have been weeks, months or maybe even years of trouble and turmoil seem to go on forever. Those times are burned into our memories as periods of penetrating pain and as we endure them, the days seem unending. Nights can almost be longer than the days with interrupted or broken sleep, tossing and turning with minds that don’t shut off.
Right now, business owners and leaders are being faced with incredible challenges that they have never been forced to deal with. In the past several months I have worked with business owners who are struggling with flat or declining sales, people problems including their worries about laying off employees and in some cases not being able to find people who want to work. Some leaders are feeling overwhelmed because they don’t have any plans to deal with their challenges while others must delay their plans to exit their businesses. Add the challenges of remote work, accountability issues, and cash flow issues and it is not surprising that many business leaders feel that time is standing still.
In times like this we need to remember we cannot do it alone. We need to engage our teams, ask for help from our families and put trust in our faith. Hopefully, things will improve but some organizations will not make it and if yours is one of those, you need to realize that the failure of your business does not mean you have failed as a person. This can be hard to grasp for leaders who have put their heart and soul into all that they do.
When our businesses don’t work, due to an unpredictable economy, we need to work and think differently. Stepping out of the weeds of the business can be difficult, yet unless we change our perspective, we are going to continue to work in the same way and get the same results. We have to put serious energy into looking at what is working for us and what is not and make a decision to adjust our strategies. Some of those strategies might include options that we have never considered before.
When we are in the middle of what we were wishing for, but it is not as we dreamed it would be, the mental anguish can be intense. We need to remember that time isn’t standing still and we will get through this, just as we have with challenges in the past. The outcome might not be exactly as we hoped but, in some cases, different might even be better.
Don’t give up hope.
- Dave Fuller, MBA, is an award-winning business coach who has faced adversity and has written a book called Profit Yourself Healthy. Time standing still for you? Email dave@pivotleader.com
