Surviving a Recession
Transparent strategies on what to do and what to avoid during this critical time.
As a business owner, you are no doubt feeling uncertainty and nervousness about our current recession. You have questions. What comes next? What happens until a vaccine is released? Will this end? There are no easy answers. But there is good news. We have survived recessions before. While each recession hits differently, we can learn from each one we’ve been through.
Majority of businessman and entrepreneurs failed at multiple businesses before finding his/her path to success. But how and what support them surviving through recession and thrived in the aftermath. How? They learned to think like a millionaire or even billionaire, seeing things few steps ahead without looking back.
What You Should DO Now
The good news about the sudden economic crash in early 2020 is that next year, the GDP is still expected to go up. The world GDP is predicted to increase by 5.4% during 2021. That still leaves the global GDP more than 6% lower than was originally predicted, but it is still growth.
So how are you going to capitalize on that growth?
If you want to know how to survive a recession, that’s the key: capitalizing on what growth there is. That’s what someone who thinks with a millionaire mindset does.
A recession doesn’t have to be the end for your or your business. Instead, it gives you an opportunity to adapt, change, and grow your business.
This recession is particularly unique because it leveled the playing field for many businesses. Everyone’s supply chains were impacted. Almost everyone had to close any physical locations. And if you weren’t online before, you better be now.
But what this means is that anyone can capitalize on this new economy and rise from the ashes.
Why can’t that person be you?
So you need to avoid panicking, stopping your networking, and taking on debts, and you definitely need to continue doing business. Instead, you need to focus on the following practices.
DO — Examine Your Business Structure & Practices
How is your business currently operating? Are you only in a brick and mortar location? If you are, you’re probably really hurting. Your business is operating in a Business 3.0 world vs a Business 2.0 organization.
What does that mean? Basically, you’re behind the times. You’re not reaching people the way they needed to be reached. You’re also inhibiting movement and bogging down your business with bloated infrastructure.
In this recession, this is more important than ever.
If you’re not online, you will not survive this recession. The current recession is really unique in this way: it’s stopping people from physically going to stores.
So you need to get online, fully digitized your business.
There is endless potential for online businesses. If you’re selling physical products, getting online is a complex process but simpler than those who offer service-based businesses.
It will take time to restructure your business and build your online store, but the world will continue online after this recession is over. If you’re wondering how you could possibly get your business online, it’s time to be creative. But this is also how you keep yourself actually doing business during the recession.
For instance, gyms are offering online classes. They’ve used their free time to build courses and social media channels that they can then monetize. Even if your social media is not making money, use the time you now have to put out content. If you’re a plumber, make videos about when you know you need to call a plumber. Building an online audience will help you build brand recognition and increase your reach.
So broaden your business practices and evaluate how you’re currently structured.
DO — Expand Your Offerings
That brings us to our next point to survive this recession: expanding your offerings.
As we mentioned, this could include online offerings for businesses that weren’t online before. Your business could also host online events.
You could host informational lives, contests, podcasts, and so much more to educate your audience and reach more people.
But if you’re a service-based business, you could also look into expanding into physical products you can sell online. Have you successfully developed a popular brand? Have you considered selling merchandise?
This unique and creative approach to business will show a different mindset than other business owners. Others will just sit back and let the world happen to them, but you can think like a millionaire and adapt.
Take your new found time staying at home to brainstorm new ways to expand what your business offers. This adaptation and flexibility will be what keeps your business thriving during this recession.
DO — Evaluate Your Team
As you expand your offerings, your team will need to be nimble to keep up with the changes. This is an excellent opportunity to consider how your team is structured.
For example, if your team is made up of a strategic mix of employees and freelancers and they are distributed all over the world and are completely virtual. There are costs to hosting a virtual team, but they pale in comparison to the overhead that comes with a physical office space and day-to-day operating cost.
Not to mention, a Stanford study found that people who work from home are 13% more productive.
In this pandemic, having a remote working team means your team will be more productive, but they will also feel safer. This will make them feel more loyal to you and your business.
But having an online team also opens up the possibility of having employees and contractors all over the world. That is a huge ocean of talent to choose from. Additionally, having people working in multiple time zones helps you to optimize your work. People will be working all around the clock.
If you don’t know how to restructure your team, ask your team members what they want, what is their concern and preference when working from home is mandatory policy. Try to align prioritize employees’ well being while aligning with your productivity optimization plan to deliver exceptional business results. Then look at what is the best fiscal option. And remember: the future of business is online, but putting people before profit is always the priority.
DO — Keep Communication Open
This is something you definitely need to do to survive a recession. It will help your employees keep confidence in you and also keep you informed of how they feel.
There is a lot of uncertainty in the air. This recession is unlike any we have faced, and continued changes in government regulations impact businesses every day. As you make decisions, keep employees informed of plans — and of contingency plans. This will keep morale up and inspire them to keep working.
If employees feel like they are fighting for a business that won’t survive, they won’t invest as much. But if they know they’re working for someone who is continually adapting and planning, they will have more faith in the business’s survival.
Not to mention, if you let your employees be honest with you, you will better be able to alleviate their fears and keep them loyal to you. If they are nervous about working in an office, give them the option to work from home. If they have ideas of new offerings, it could change your business.
Stay open and stay honest at all levels of the business.
DO — Evaluate Expenditures & Savings
We already talked about now taking on new debts, but this is also a time to evaluate where you are spending your money and how you are saving and investing. You do not want to run out of cash as that’s still a business killer. So where are you spending your money? What’s your ROI during the uncertainties?
In your personal life, how are you managing your finances during this recession? If your income went down, you most likely cut out unnecessary spending. Do the same with your business.
Manage your debt, consider your spending, and increase your savings. Focus on where your cash flow is coming from and invest there. Then, expand your business in cost-effective ways, or redirect spending to areas of the business that could become profitable in this recession.
You need to evaluate your money differently because you are going to learn how to think like a millionaire. And millionaires don’t view their money and investments like other people.
DO — Help Others When Able
Are you one of the businesses we listed earlier that are doing well? Can you afford to help others right now? Even if you can’t spare the cash, is there a way you could reach someone else and improve their world?
It may feel counter-intuitive to give anything away when money is so tight right now. But not only is it a good thing to do, but it can be an excellent PR move.
Take Zoom for example. When it became apparent that schools were going to need to move online, Zoom removed their time limit for their free K-12 education accounts. This was a move of deep compassion on their part that is helping millions of students, educators, and schools.
But it also received positive media attention.
While you may not be able to do something that large, trying to help others right now is a beautiful human move. We are all suffering and moving through this together. So take advantage of that and show the human, compassionate side of your business.
What You Should Avoid
What do you do when you are faced with uncertainty? Do you clam up? Do you stop moving? Do you start talking about what you should or want to do instead of actually doing it?
One Caltech study concluded that when people are faced with making decisions in uncertain circumstances, they make more erratic decisions. You would think their decisions would become cautious and calculated, but instead, people stop thinking and start listening to their primal brains.
As a business person, you need to overcome these impulses.
When faced with uncertainty, check your gut. Take time to process through your fear, anxiety, and other negative feelings. If you take time to process and feel those emotions, you will be able to recognize them and their impact on your decision making. After you take time to eliminate those feelings in your decision making, then start deciding.
But there are still things you need to avoid doing when a recession hits. If you want to know how to survive a recession, you really need to avoid these actions. They will put your business at risk. So where should you start now that we are in a recession?
DON’T — Panicking
First of all: don’t panic. If your business is hurting and your finances are suffering, your first instinct may be to do something. You don’t just want to sit there and let the world happen to you. You want to react and do something to help yourself.
But the issue is that you won’t just do something — you’ll do anything.
That’s not a smart move.
These gut and primal reactions are based on pure impulse, not logic or reasoning. As a business owner, you may really trust your instincts. They’ve gotten you this far. But your brain is facing a lot of uncertainty right now, so it’s not the moment to listen to your primal brain.
You also need to remember that you are a business owner. That means people are relying on you. You need to be a leader for your organization. Others are looking towards you, so if you panic, they’ll panic. If you want work to get done and your business to advance, you need them calm and working. Not feeling the need to jump off the ship because their captain is panicking.
So keep calm. Don’t be afraid to feel your emotions, but don’t let them overwhelm you. And don’t let your team see you panic.
DON’T — Taking On Unnecessary Debts
One primal instinct to survive a recession is to take on debts. During this recession, the US government offered businesses loans for many organizations. You very well may have needed that loan to make payroll.
But moving forward, don’t take on unnecessary debts. You should evaluate how you can pay off the loans you do have and avoid taking on more.
Is your business one of the organizations doing well during this recession? Online retailers, supermarkets, liquor stores, workspace solutions, online entertainment, and sanitation product companies all have found a lot of success during this era.
So if you own one of those businesses, you may not need to be as concerned about your debt status.
But if you’re one of the 83% of business owners who have been impacted by COVID-19, then you should consider how you’re handling your debt. This goes for your personal life, too. You need to start approaching your finances with a Millionaire Mindset.
How do you think about your money? Do you deeply consider how and where you invest it? Are you thinking of your money like a millionaire?
This also impacts how you navigate your debt and financial issues. But we’ll get to how you can fully embrace a Millionaire Mindset to survive a recession in next agenda.
DON’T — Halting Business Operations
Whatever you do, don’t just completely stop doing business. If you have to furlough employees because you stop bringing in revenue, your team may find other employers. If you stop making revenue, you may never get your business back. You’ll lose ground, motivation, and momentum.
Stopping business in the middle of a recession is a sure way to lose your business.
So keep going and moving…
Now you may be thinking, The stay at home order is actually stopping me from doing business. That may be true for your traditional business, so you’ll need to be creative.
You will need to look at your business structure, but we’ll get to that.
For now, just know that you should not stop doing business. That’s not how to survive a recession.
DON’T — Slowing Down Your Networking Activities
You should also not slow down or stop your networking activities. Traditional, in-person networking events may have been canceled, but online networking is happening more now than ever.
To digitally network, you can:
- Utilize LinkedIn.
- Attend virtual events.
- Cold call or cold email businesses or entrepreneurs you admire.
- Join Facebook groups with similar minded people.
- Interact with and grow your social media audience.
In a LinkedIn study, 61% of people agreed that regular online communication is important in the professional world. So if you’re not communicating with people online, you are automatically devaluing yourself to 61% of business professionals.
Additionally, in the same survey, 49% of people admitted to failing to keep up professional relationships. Their reason? They don’t have time. But professionals who dedicate at least 6 hours of their week to networking say it’s crucial to their success.
So this is not a business practice to be overlooked or forgotten. Casual LinkedIn conversations can lead to opportunities. Chatting with someone in a Facebook group can give you chances you never had before.
Now is the time to be creative (and safe) about how you network during this recession. It will give your business opportunities to expand and ideas on how to approach this recession. But don’t stop networking.
Key Takeaway — What To Do Right Now
If you take the above steps while being creative,open and flexible with your approach, you will set yourself up to survive this recession.
But what can you do right now?
You need to start thinking like you’ve already survived and transcended the recession. You’ve got to break into a mindset of success, confidence, and endurance. Break it down into step-by-step guideline and rituals to keep yourself moving everyday.
In short: you need to start thinking ahead like a multi-millionaire.
Millionaires view money, energy and time differently. They look at their business through a unique lens. These approaches bring them success, wealth, and survival.
That’s how to survive a recession — Think differently, Respond wisely!
The best news is that all of us have certain tool/ strength to help yourself think exactly like a millionaire. The only thing you probably need to learn and practice is how to recall and unlock the secrets of the Millionaire Mindset and how to make this year your best year ever — in spite of a global recession.
This process of learning will ultimately build up your real character and resilience in dealing with all the unforeseen challenges, resolving conflicts from either from inner world or the outer world.
Fundamentally, it’s all about shifting your mindset, gearing yourself up with tools (physically and spirituality) while taking appropriate action and pragmatic approach wisely everyday. You will notice a massive and positive changes in all aspect in your life, at the end of the funnel.
At last, stay strong, be open and never give up!
