As a small business owner, you may have been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. You are certainly not alone. While countless businesses have literally sunk under the economic, societal and political effects of the pandemic, small business have suffered the most under the pressure. Most of these small businesses are also owned by minorities, including women and African-Americans, worsening the socio-economic impact of an already devastating crisis. Of these struggling minority businesses, a majority is women-owned and has registered a 13 point drop in overall health in July 2020, as compared to a five point drop for male-owned businesses, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
As vaccines are getting distributed more widely and the next normal is slowly setting in, a reset is imposing itself for most companies. From the way they operate, to their employees’ schedules, not to mention their very revenue-generating activities, companies have been gearing up for significant changes. Despite being provided some assistance relief, these changes are still spelling doom for many. Yet for most, these are necessary changes carrying with them incredible lessons of resilience, adaptability and growth.
At the end of the day, the main, and most resounding concern small business owners have, is around resetting their organizations for the best after the pandemic. The main question, however, is how.
How do you change and adapt at the same time? How do you create opportunity out of apparent scarcity? How do you manufacture the next normal in an uncertain landscape still ridden with crisis?
- Get re-acquainted with your “why”
Crisis are excellent opportunities to reconsider the “why” behind our motives, projects and organizations. As a small business owner, a crisis of such a magnitude as the pandemic we all faced, may have put everything you thought you knew back in question, especially when faced with the horrid prospect of life or death, of survival or destruction.
While there are many mechanical, financial and tactical concerns that may appear to rule the existence of a successful business, its main driver really is its “why”. All systems, processes and people ought to rally around a strong sense of identity of the business. This sense of identity may have been altered or reinforced by the recent crisis, or may have been even reinforced. Whatever the case is, re-evaluating your business’ why is indispensable to moving forward and resetting as a small business owner after the pandemic.
- How can you adapt your business to the current business landscape
One thing that has been made even more constant by the recent pandemic is change. As individuals, we’ve changed the way we related to each other, the way we live, the way we parent, and definitely the way we work and do business. More than ever, our adaptability and resilience skills are needed to help us understand, manage and overcome the onslaught of change we’re now facing. Our organizations and businesses especially are grappling with these drastic changes in unprecedented ways.
As a small business owner, what this may mean for you could be to reconsider the environment your business is currently in. Is your business adapted to the new online trends that have prevailed as a result of the pandemic’s physical distancing? Are you prepared to restructure the way you manage your employees? Is your organization open to upcoming economic changes? These are just a few of the questions that come to mind when considering where your business currently is, as opposed to where it is supposed to operate.
- Check your systems
If the “why” and the adaptability of businesses are the heart of a business, its systems are its limbs. These systems and processes are the very mechanisms , from accounting to financial, that keep the business functioning to its optimal capacity. In times of crisis, these mechanisms can unfortunately doom an organization to utter failure.
Are your accounting systems adapted to the nature and type of products or services you sell? Is the way you’re structuring your finances adequate for your type of business? If your business is currently changing, are your systems also being adapted to these changes?
Overall, as a small business owner, changes are more than ever needed to recover, and strive through the aftermath of this and any crisis. Resetting priorities, motives, skills and systems is then no longer a luxury, but an ever-present requirement.
How are you re-setting your business as a small business owner?
The Corporate Sis.
