Episode 243: Keeping Business Afloat in Difficult Times
In the COVID-19 Pandemic, both people and businesses were greatly affected. A lot of businesses have no choice but to close down. As a business owner, do you know what it takes to keep the business afloat when things are tough or when income is not coming in?
In this episode, Adam Stott shares some strategies for keeping the business afloat in difficult times such as the Pandemic. Adam talks about the importance of keeping your fortitude and having a positive mindset as a business owner. Listen to learn more!
Show Highlights:
- Setting your mindset to overcome adversities and become better
- Focusing on positives rather than why the business is slowing down
- How to invest wisely in your business
- Improving your strategy for sales and marketing
- Importance of surrounding yourself with good people
Links Mentioned:
Join the Ultimate Three Day Business Event and learn more Business Growth Secrets
Be part of our Facebook Group Big Business Events Members Network
Connect with me on Instagram @adamstottcoach
Transcript:
Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.
Adam Stott:
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to this episode of Business Growth Secrets show you’re with your host, Adam Stott. Looking forward to chatting with you today. I wanted to make the subject of the podcast today about what to do in difficult times. And I think it’s something that is really important to discuss. And I’m going to kind of talk to you today about what I feel it takes as a business owner. When times are tough when sales are not coming in, as frequently, to just give you a few tips about what you can do to push your business forward and make things happen.
Now, the first thing I want to say is that I had a few calls off of clients of mine and the first thing people do when things get a little bit quiet is they start to look for outside sources to not give an excuse, because that will be a bit harsh, but they like to have a reason, people don’t like to not have a reason or a theory as to why things are not as good as they should be. They find that difficult and frustrating when things are going a little bit tough. And they’re not getting as many inquiries and sales are a little bit down.
So the first thing they do, and I’ve noticed over the years that. This is to be totally straight, I’ve done it myself, right? Is that people will start to say, well, you know what, it’s because we’ve had good weather or we’ve had bad weather. The bad weather is the reason that business is struggling. The good weather is the reason that business is struggling. Whatever it is, depending on your industry, of course, it might be that they want to at the moment. Especially, you know, COVID was a big one, Oh COVID ruined my business. Or COVID affected my business. Things have become more difficult because of COVID. That’s another one that people are tagged on.
So the latest one, obviously things going on in the world that are not great over in Ukraine, which let’s be honest, that’s horrendous and terrible. And of course, that’s something that business owners in certain fields are going to feel, they’re going to see the impact of that on their everyday life. That’s just true, right?
However, the first thing that I think you’ve got to look at is you got to look at you as an individual, as an entrepreneur. And you’ve got to have the mindset of look, no excuses. When the going gets tough, The tough get going. Always remember that song, a very close friend of mine, his dad who sadly passed away now. We’ve all listened to that song when the going gets tough, the tough get going. And what I am interpreting this to you as is that when things get tough. That’s when your mindset as a business owner needs to make sure that you don’t look to give a reason to these outside sources.
Instead say to yourself, how can I be better? How can I do something differently? How can I learn from what I did in the past? In order to replicate a similar result? How can I test new things that are going to allow me to have more conversations, and really ask yourself different questions. Because when a business owner gets really centred on why things are not working, and they give it a reason that disempowers you. It means that you’re not empowered to find a solution because you tank the reason as things not working as being the weather, being COVID being a wall, whatever.
So now you’re not actively looking for solutions. Because you feel like the problem has been dealt with in your mind where it hasn’t really been dealt with. The problems still exist because you’re still not getting the result you want to get.
So difficult times don’t look for outside sources as the reason instead look internally and say what can I change? What can I do better? How can I be more influential? How can I be a better marketer? And how can I be more strategic? And how can I grow my business?
Now the second thing that happened in difficult times, and this is something that you’ve got to massively be aware of right, really, really important is that people, of course, look to cut costs. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing to do to have a cost cutting exercise. It’s something that you should look at in your business. Certainly, on an ongoing basis by looking at your management accounts, and you want to look at your business and you want to look at costs, absolutely. It’s very, very important. However, there are certain things that make money in business. And there are certain things that don’t make you money in business.
Now, in a difficult time, you have to make sure that you are investing harder in the things that make you money. And not invest in hard earned things that don’t make you money. Because fear, and being fearful and being worried about your business not growing, because the times are tough, etc, etc. If you decide then that you’re not going to spend as much money on marketing, or you’re not going to build your business because you’re fearful, then all you are doing is slowly allowing your business to start to tail off. And look, we’re either growing or we’re dying. And if you ain’t growing, you’re dying.
So you got to look at how do you get your marketing, don’t ever cut your marketing costs in a difficult time. Instead, if your marketing is not working, as well as it used to work, look at more strategic ways that you can market. Improve your offers, make your offers better, make your messaging better. You know, diversify the channels that you market on and do things differently.
Another one is sales. When times get tough, your sales people start selling a little less, maybe they get down a little, they get a bit negative. Well, you need to make sure that you don’t go too hard on your sales team. And instead you focus on motivating them, you empower them, giving them better offers better opportunities, better guarantees. Whatever it is to get you those sales and those deals, you need to keep your sales and boards.
So marketing and sales grow businesses. And there are two things that you absolutely need to have in place. Now the third thing, which is something that I always look to, is specialized advice and information. When things are difficult, when things get tough, the most important thing that you can have around you at that stage is the right advice and the right people helping you. Ideally somebody has been through difficult times they’ve been through ups and downs. They’ve been through a change in the economy, they’ve been through changes and things like that. And they’ve seen this stuff before. Because they’re going to allow you to keep calm.
I spoke to a lovely guy earlier. Great, great, great guy. And I’m not sure if he’s a podcast listener or not. But he’s one of my clients, one of my gold circle clients, and he rang me. And he says to me, I get phone call out of blue and I was about to actually jump onto a different meeting but delay the meeting, took the call and he was in sheer panic.
The sheer panic he was in was he had a few problems that were very solvable. They were not difficult to solve. But because of the panic, he’s whipped himself up into a frenzy. These problems now seem insurmountable. They feel like they can’t be solved. Even though if we looked at them logically, if we take the panic out of it. They can be solved and they can be solved quickly. So with a bit of specialized information, a bit of guidance very quickly.
In this case, it was about raising around 50,000 pounds, in order to cover cash flow. Understanding the mentality of how to do it. Where to access. How to go and do it very quickly. We were able to come up with a solution to raise that 50,000 pounds. Get him centred, get back on track, get his mindset right. Keep him calm, so he could go and push on and build his business. And we all have these challenges in business, we all have these times that come up, we all have these difficult times. It’s about how we respond to them. And being calm and measured, for me is something that I feel is really, really, really important.
So few obviously different bits of advice there for you today. Make sure that you stay calm, make sure that you stay measured. Make sure you’re marking your business, make sure you’re driving your sales team, look at how you can improve look at how you improve your offers. Look at how you can improve what you do. And when I say improve your offers. I’m not talking about how you have to go and discount things. Improve your offers to be done in a better way than that.
I’m actually about to take a full day training tomorrow for our gold circle group. And my gold circle groups a group of my clients that are business owners that I coach and I mentor. And we’ve got a full day tomorrow about how do you create amazing offers that allow people to say yes, and it doesn’t include discounting. Because discount is not what it’s all about, you know people value other things rather than discounting I think that’s really important to understand, let me give a couple of examples.
The speed of which somebody gets the product or service is something that people value. How can you increase the speed, the outcome that somebody gets the guarantee that they get somebody values more than they value a discount. So you got to look at how you can create really great offers. So maybe we’ll do another podcast after I’ve run that session tomorrow.
But I want to jump on today to tell you look, hey, if you’re listening to this, and you’re going through a difficult time, remember the things that grow businesses are marketing, sales and specialized information. If you’re in a panic, make sure that you take time to be calm, you take time to ask yourself better questions. And if you’re not sure what questions are shelf, get the right coach and get the right mentor and get the right people around you to ask you those questions. Because he’s gonna make a big impact on you. And hopefully, as one or two you have helped today with this podcast and we’ll leave it there we got tons more coming up.
Hopefully you’re enjoying these if you are, make sure you go and leave us a five star review. And make sure you subscribe so you can get all the latest episode did also today. I did a great interview with a new episode they’ll go out next week. Really enjoyable episode about a chap that traveled the world as a broadcaster became a property investor. He’s now in podcast himself. Chap called Richard really enjoyed that today. So there’s some great episodes come out because so many cool ones coming out. You want to make sure that you are subscribed. Thanks, everybody.