When I was about four years old and playing cars on the floor with my brother Rob, my other brother Paul started making a funny noise. Looking over, I noticed that Paul’s face was a funny bluish color, his mouth was open and inside I saw that he had a wooden building block with the letter C lodged in his throat.
Yelling for my Mom who was in the kitchen, was all that I could do.
Mom ran in and tried unsuccessfully to get the block out of his mouth before rushing Paul to the hospital where they were successful in dislodging the block, saving his life.
Right now, there are many business owners who are struggling to figure out how to get their business beyond COVID-19 and this economic crisis. Here are five building blocks that need to be the foundation of your business moving forward.
Block 1 – Planning
More than ever we need to understand that planning is key to getting through this with your business. Having a clear understanding about what your mission to your customers is. A vision of how that business will grow and personal goals about what you want out of the business, both in the short term, and in the longer term. As leaders, we need to have clarity so that we can share our vision of what the next few months are going to be like with our team and get them on board to help drive the business to be successful again.
Block 2 – Profitability
While every business needs to be profitable to survive, many business owners have by now realized that perhaps their business hasn’t been as profitable and viable as it should have been. By knowing what your profit potential is and where you need to look to ensure that you are building and growing a profitable business is key. There is no use in growing sales if you lose money every time you sell something. Having a clear understanding of how business works and what you need to do to ensure that your business is going to be around to serve your customers and feed your family is crucial. We need to look for profit holes and potential, develop scorecards, reporting, and measurement of aspects of your business that contribute to profitability. We must develop marketing and growth plans for the business to ensure we can survive and thrive in the outcome of this crisis.
Block 3 - Your Team
Unless you are some sort of consultant who is doing everything by yourself, you need a team to support you and your customers. Growing and developing your organization and managing your team through your leadership at this time, is a key building block of any future successful business.
Block 4 – Systemization
Effective systems reduce stress, allow for duplication of services, and ensure that your employees can do the job when you are not around. Systems ensure that your customers get the same service they deserve each and every time they contact you. Every organization can be systemized to ensure stability and reduce stress! Take this opportunity while things are still slow to consider the systems you need to implement in your business.
Block 5 – Value
As you have probably come to realize in the past weeks, nobody looks out for the future of small business owners. No one is going to put money away for your retirement but you! As small business owners, we don’t have the benefit of working for a big corporation or a government agency that will pay us thousands of dollars a month when we retire or get laid off. The truth is, most businesses close down without the owner realizing value for their years of hard work. This building block ensures that the business is valuable and saleable when the owners are ready to retire.
If you find yourself choking on your some of the building blocks you are playing with during this crisis, take some time to think about using those blocks differently so that you have breathing space and time to ensure your success. By focusing your efforts into ensuring that you have the right blocks in place to enable your business to achieve what it needs to will go a long way to reducing your stress, now and when this crisis is a distant memory.
- Dave Fuller, MBA, is a certified professional business coach and the author of the book Profit Yourself Healthy. Choking on your business? Email [email protected]
