Covid & economy Slow down-Action points.

With the advent of the “BIG BUG” COVID-19, the challenging question or perhaps, a serious concern about the direction of the economy is holding strong & dicey with many start-ups/small & mid-size businesses irrespective of the vertical they serve. And we must agree to the fact, that the whole world is fighting against a single enemy keeping the lives, cultures, traditions, future, health & finances at stake!

As a matter of fact, unlike the previous slow down/recessions’, this isn’t a financial fall, indeed it’s a pandemical fall. Hence, the fear is with being alive and not economy. As Jack Ma, mentioned, living thru 2020 itself is a profitable proposition than making any profits in the businesses. Vaccine/Treatment drugs are way far and nothing conclusive yet by far in the near future?! Leave that to the Pharma industry as of now. However, the world isn’t ending for sure. What businesses can do thru the rest of 2020 plays a critical & vital element.

Well, let’s get into the big confusion & questions flying thru the roof of every entrepreneur & the staff associated with them: Are we into recession? Are we leading to a depression? And few statements/communique like the cash reserves across various countries depleting with their national repositories, negative interest rates, bankruptcies, big nations printing money, increasing the debt trap, unemployment claims, liquidating the assets, losing jobs, manufacturing attracting a big halt, purchasing power at least, Covid cases on an alarming spree, 2nd wave, death toll increasing, food for future, etc. to name a few but big. Sounds arduous & seems like a hideous thought, right?

I would like to put down few examples and situational cases with my experience aggressively over the past 1 year and the perspective difference between a little late 2019 — till date. These situations and challenges only reflect the start-ups & the SMBs as I only worked with them over the past year and so.

Many organizations which were aiming the sky till late 2019; w.r.t. expansion, building, scalability, diversification, attracting unlimited talent, new innovations, disruptions, conglomerations, partnerships, funding & investment, growth hacking, acquisitions, huge business development & attracting rapid employment to mention; beyond their logical propositions have now unearthed invariably to the leanest methodologies just in a jiffy. What now with this dicey buzz? Cutting down the infrastructure, layoffs, retrenchment, zero disruptions, no ideation blocks, pay — cuts, desperation, panic selling, panic buying, losing hope on the product, solutions, skill they own, sluggish & distraught meeting sessions and what not looking at every possibility to curtail the expenditure.

Fine. Moreover, here follow the new questions;

- Aren’t we ready for any business twitch?

- Aren’t we ready for a long-term vision?

- Are we contended with the modality?

- Didn’t we understand the competency of our workforce?

- Aren’t we living up to the content mentioned in our websites & customer pitches about our strengths, expertise, USPs, mission & vision, having the best staff, best skill & will, leadership capabilities, crisis management etc.?

- Are we following the “general business herd trend” based on the economical parameters irrespective of we having a niche of our own with our clients? In short, running the show with the market fad?!

- Finally, have we lost that urge, confidence & optimistic virtue we promised ourselves when starting a business? Only the optimists can have zero confusion about being an entrepreneur!

There were many recessions & falls in history i.e., world wars, Great depression, the OPEC oil shock, Asian crisis, Great financial crisis, dot com bubbles, GDP negative quarters, Housing market crisis and many more. Well, for the gen Y (millennials) who are now the aggressive blood in start ups have atleast gone thru the Great financial recession of 2008/09. “Friends who worked with me remember the times we used to get more excited & aggressive during any economical fall, coz that’s the time “mother business” offers you a chance to play the best. We did it in 2001 and 2008 and why not now? As long as someone is there to buy & sell, every time. Right? Your business is either on the buying or the selling side. DOT!

All said & done, let me share my experiences assisting with optimising, segregating, restructuring, cascading, fine tuning little over a score of organizations thru the past few months. The foremost thing to be considered is:

“We are not afraid of failure; we are afraid of blame”.

Are everyone sure of the fact, “It’s not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It’s the customer who pays the wages.” Take care of your employees and they help in building the customers.

To sum it up, No customers = No wages.

Now, what should be the new normal?

A firm doesn’t need a reason like Corona to sack an employee or cut down costs. And if they are looking for one, probably they haven’t gained any sight or are being myopic! If an employee is potential, he/she shall remain potential irrespective of the market happenings & drawbacks. Overhauling & periodical maintenance applies in the same format either for body or vehicle or business. You don’t need an event. Don’t be restless for not able to utilize the full potential of the staff. Try to ask yourself, if you really understood what his/her potential is, if yes, then 100% utilization will fall in place or may even exceed? Most of them fail here.

“You can neither propose your best cardiologist to treat a bald head nor tag your best Boeing engineer to a HONDA nor deploy your highly paid SAP PM functional consultant to re write a code in the RPA environment”. Fit gap is an easy but a herculean task as well!

The only agenda or the motive of the leadership/stake holders should be, is to retain the potential employees they see/feel irrespective of the market at its highs or lows. High time that the employer/employee come out of the emotive myths like family, care and all. These virtues don’t gel in business. Nothing wrong but provide no use. They serve no purpose especially with start-ups & mid-sized orgs. Each employee is a business partner. Period! Just that, their stakes vary across. Nevertheless, as long as he/she think and act like a business partner, there will be no room for wasted time. This is a SERIOUS concern with many of the firms. Unfortunately, in my observation, 60% of the time, staff are using their time, talent & skill to appease/please/win the attention of the immediate management to get in good books (even the leadership is trying to do the same with the stake holders — No surprise). It’s just like milking an OX. ABSOLUTE BUMMER! We must admit it.

Dear stakeholders, please don’t fall for these, this is the world wherein $M & $B businesses are filing for bankruptcy! Every employee who heads someone in the organization including the investors are stakeholders as per my definition.

Have a single agenda in place & then business follows. Focus on winning & pleasing the customer and not your immediate boss! This is important, else by the time the hierarchy understands these things into their comfort, competition never waits to pull the existing luxury! Family & business isn’t the same. You heard it right. Only the optimists live here. No point in winning the focus of your immediate lead/manager as it doesn’t bring any purpose to the company especially in these times.

“Leaders are born out of crisis & tactics are deployed during economic falls”. Do you have those leaders? You can’t for sure hire them in crisis, one can only retain them during crisis to assist the organization sail thru the crisis.

Please never get fooled by the reports with indecisive funnels, hyped leads, false demand gen., deliberate/solicited customer satisfaction, open ended calls & discussions with under performing suspects/prospects and basically have a “pirate funnel” (AAARRR) in place!

High time to exhibit the actual definition of STRATEGY-

I was assisting a product-based firm and they were doing good, but the very basic essence of STRATEGY is missing. Same with 3 Staffing firms & a services firm. No strategy in place. And yes, they were green on balance sheets & they don’t have a straight answer for how & why? Perhaps, lucky?! If so, then Casino is the right place and not an entrepreneur establishment. Another situation with a case of 2016 start up (health care IT services): They were doing great till 2019 and now in flash red. I understood their work culture which made me believe that most of the time they were only trying to win the favor the investors & VCs. Boy, People, employees, capital will flock towards you when you build a reputation for excellence. Invest the same time in building a brand & business proposition & then, you are there to just filter the VCs thronging your company. You got it right! Time is very precious. TALK only what you can FOLLOW. Unwanted meetings, iterative con calls, piles of reports/metrics, directionless hierarchies were part of history! Even now it’s not WORK FROM HOME; indeed, LIVING AT WORK!

Blackberry messenger phone was a revolution. However, that doesn’t mean you can market that concept in 2020. Hence marketing is the crux despite the best disruption you have. Sitting over an innovative idea/solution/technology/product forever minus marketing in time is like experiencing the feel of water in the ocean where you have high chances of getting drowned forever.

First & foremost: every division is a profit center office (PCO). Days are gone wherein potential companies operate with a Cost center. Interlinking your Cost centers to the Profit centers is the only solution. This boils down to the point of every employee acting like a business partner.

Uttering much of buzz words, unwanted technology, catchy terms doesn’t bring in business. Try to listen, listen & listen. Enough of mutual praises & eulogy. No wrong in appreciating & complementing at work. However, waiting for them to beam in glory will only kill your potential. A NO IS A NO even if he/she is your boss or the leadership. Be brave to contradict any deviation.

The ability to give constructive feedback, without causing resentment, is a superpower. Patience, understanding & acting should also be the new curriculum at your work. The importance of constructive feedback is to clearly and gracefully explaining the consequences associated with a specific process, behavior and action.

Use this brief time to read, analyse & understand about your target sectors & customers; the world is temporarily on a slowdown path. Be the 1st one to help them when they are ready. Economies have started to open up slowly. Else, the time economy starts running, you’re lost away by miles from the aggressive work tanks. Try to follow only OMOT (one metric one time) that’s retaining your clients and winning new clients. Work on the demarcation of named clients, existing clients & strategic clients. This is very important in the current times: Understand your customer & build a model backward that suits them. Sounds SIMPLE right? Which is also the only metric to be monitored at times and business will follow.

Don’t confuse goals with desires. Try asking the clients if you don’t understand. The person who asks is a fool for 5 minutes, but the one who doesn’t ask remains a fool forever. (From a Japanese proverb — To ask is a temporary shame, not to ask is a life-long one). Try to understand and ask the pain areas. We grew in a system wherein we got used to referring a mathematical sum as “PROBLEM” (do remember, instructor saying, solve the problem in Math) Hence, ask & try to understand your prospects & customers well. Every deal may not have an extra cheese; however, the preparedness allows you to own the cheese in advance.

Negligence & lethargy travels so slowly, that business loss soon overtakes it. Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible & suddenly you are doing the impossible!

Please do remember, “Failure is free feedback & Customer service is not a department. It’s a culture. No denominators to build business”.

Let’s see how it comprehends;

A bar of iron costs $5. Made into a horseshoe it’s worth $12. Made into needles it’s worth $3,500. Made into balance springs for watches, it’s worth $300,000.

Therefore: remember that your own value is determined by what you can make of yourself.

We chase what’s sexy and miss what matters. Excitement starts something. Execution completes it. You cannot learn to swim by reading about swimming in a book. You must dive in the pool. Businesses and economy are very much here to stay. Fact written on stone.

Finally, we need not be Ethan Hunts, Michael Jordans, Dr. Ozs or Michio Kakus in your work/business. Just understand your customer & reverse engineer to meet their want. PERIOD! On a personal front we may have different theories akin, however, when running a business or assisting one; any theory may it be Darwin’s or Maslow’s cater to the same purpose. No rebuttal required.