Despite the fear and uncertainty surrounding humanity’s latest global challenge, economies around the world are still holding, our societies are functioning -almost- normally, and for your typical ‘nine-to-five’ employee, daily life at the office is more or less the same.
The corporate world doesn’t seem to be halting any soon with a greater influx in demand and services.
We are halfway through April 2020 and chances are the pandemic may last up to the end of the year. September 2020 is going to come and inevitably September 2021 too. If you want to build a successful business or survive the financial backlash during COVID-19, you can follow one of 2 strategies that I have mentioned below:
1- Be the guy in the middle
Let’s name our guy The Rider Owl. The Rider Owl observes the trends in corporate sector and performs his next step in calculative fashion. He observes the way industry copes with the pandemic and make the move.
Well there can be one problem with this strategy. By following this, the chances are he becomes the part of the hood. There is high possibility that by 3rd of April he may have gone down.
2- Tie the belt brace
It’s something we all have to do at some point of time. Our second guy is going to shut shops or cut back (of course we have to cut back on some things but remember a ‘cost is a cost and an investment is an investment’).
So, for example right now if I spot a niche in crisis management, in interim management or in Silicon Valley and I have got authority. If we got our structure figured out with our members at the very first week, we can use our assets and leverage it.
So, if we take this view of cutting cost; an investment right now would map out the market.
An investment would tell us about our clients and their needs. I would be building up the dataset or a linkedIn set or an automation funnel on that. Is it going to cost? No. It might cost me $2,000 to do it but I am going to get a stellar amount 120k out of it. So always remember that for every investment, you are getting paid.
The setback with our guy is, he is cutting cost but also likely to be going to a place whereby if this stresses out he is going to get more panicky, make rash decision, get tighter and even may go out of business.
It’s not a scaremonger, it’s a fact.
The reality is we are in a time of opportunity. We need to cut costs but we also need to increase the investments.
The chances are, our second guy may or may not go bankrupt. He is making investments, taking a risk and chances are he is most likely to succeed.
Let me simplify and explain it to you:
What we know is these dates aren’t going to shift. September would eventually come, January is going to come and April will also come. If that’s the case why would we not be leveraging?
If you intent to be in a business in the next 5 years, 10 years or 20 years, why would you not be using this time now to invest? Not just too simply invest but invest strategically.
I am not asking you to invest without re-evaluating your assets; I am talking about what’s apt.
You have to decide Minimal Viable Amount.
A minimum viable product (MVP) is a version of a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers and provide feedback for future product development.
For small start-ups MVP can range from 10-20k. This situation is quite different from big business houses. They invest a hefty sum of millions for Minimal Viable Amount giving them a strategic advantage.
So these business owners get 2 things:
1- Delay gratification {Delayed gratification, or deferred gratification, describes the process that the subject undergoes when the subject resists the temptation of an immediate reward in preference for a later reward.}
2- Strategic opportunity
So they are investing in opportunity which becomes quite profitable in a long run.
However there seems to be silver lining. Suppose our guy starts investing in between September 2020 to April 2021 and he is in the right mindset. Chances are his curve would rise sharply.
This can be achieved if he utilizes he assets cleverly. For that he has to maintain the balance between:
· Assets
· Leverage
· Stability
At this period of time, he is either focusing on thriving or surviving.
If he is focusing on surviving, he is under the margin. He has to evaluate his assets, build a LIFE RAFT and try to make it to the margin.
If he is focusing on thriving, he is above the margin and has ample amount of assets, leverage and viability. His company might be facing some growth problems and for that he has to build a LIFE YACHT.
The only way to deal with this is by figuring out your stature. So make sure you figure out whether you are surviving on a LIFE YACHT OR LIFE RAFT.
Written by:ANKITA MOHANTY
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