Hi everybody, my name is Francis Hooke and I’m the Director of We Grow Businesses. Over the last week or so we’ve started to see the impact of coronavirus in our client base and the wider business community. We therefore thought that it would be a good idea to put out a little video with tips to manage the impact of coronavirus on your small business.
The impact of coronavirus is going to vary from one business to the next. Some people are going to be significantly affected by this. Others will come through this relatively unscathed. But whatever your circumstances these three tips manage the impact of coronavirus on your small business should help.
1. Cash
The first is cash. And I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that ‘cash is king’. In order to have a balance in our bank account we need to be in a position where the money comes in first, and goes out second. So we need to be trying to pull the point in time when the money comes in as early as possible. So that means things like raising invoices as soon as we possibly can, asking customers for advanced payments, and if there’s any risk that an invoice isn’t going to get paid then we need to be on the case straight away.
In terms of money going out then we need to be pushing back in time when we’re paying our suppliers or any other creditors. So for example, there’s talk about a HMRC scheme to delay payments of things like Corporation Tax and Income Tax. If so, we want to take full advantage.
The other component of generating good cash balances is that we’re profitable. So we need to be looking at very, very carefully at our costs and if there are things that could be trimmed then we need to be doing so as soon as possible.
2. Pipeline
The second point to make is about monitoring your pipeline – so your pipeline of potential work and potential customers. Monitoring how many leads are coming in and how many are turning into sales. If you’re running a pipeline then you can measure these things. Chances are, if there’s going to be an impact to your business then you’ll see it in the pipeline first. Because what happens in the pipeline tends to be reflected in the financials a month or two later. So we would recommend installing a pipeline and measuring the data as you go along.
3. Mission Critical
The third point is about becoming indispensable to your customers. We need to be delivering a fantastic product or service to our customer – on time, on budget and to specification. We need to be faultless at a time like this. And we need to be thinking about all the other things we could be doing to help our customers through the difficult times.
Our Tips to Manage the Impact of Coronavirus on Your Small Business
So in summary:
- Work on your cash.
- Measure the performance of your pipeline.
- Try to make yourself as indispensable as possible.
I hope these tips help. And if you need any help from us, then please click here to contact us and click here to book a free business health check.
