If you are a Small Business Owner, you better not be complaining! So yes, Mother Earth decided to press the reset button and force us all into quarantine, although that’s a topic for another discussion. The question is: What are you going to do about it?
You’ve “been there and done that” before, remember? Sleepless nights, 84-hour work weeks, no weekends, no vacation, no family time, all of the above for no pay… Sounds familiar? If it does, it’s probably because that’s how you started what you have today. No one knows better than you how to survive the unknown. Sure, you were younger and naive, a lot less responsibilities you’d probably say. Now you have a family and employees, and a lot more bills to pay. But you also have something today that you didn’t before: a lot more experience.
Think about it… Is it today really much different than day one of your self-employment? For every ounce of uncertainty you have today, you had a pound back then! Now you have a lot more tools in your bag to deal with this challenge. A lot more known variables to minimize the amount of trial an error attempts. You can’t control the pandemic or what the health experts and the Government do to manage it, those are just new rules of engagement. What you can do is accept the fact that this is a new paradigm, try to find a way to adapt, and get ahead of it.
This country needs you more than ever. We need your ingenuity, your critical thinking, your sense of urgency, your don’t-take-no-for-an-answer approach, your can-do attitude. Make no mistake, this country runs on small business fuel and the entrepreneurial spirit of individuals like you behind it. There are almost 30 million small businesses in the US, employing over 60 million workers. Unfortunately, not all of them will survive this curved ball, but rest assure they will not go down without a fight. You shouldn’t either.
Some of America’s best ingenuity is starting to show once again. You’ve probably noticed how businesses and competitors around you have found ways to adapt and re-invent themselves to continue to serve their clients. Soon enough you’ll also notice how that need-to-explore and adapt gives birth to new businesses models and services that they didn’t even know could run. Crisis will push and opportunity will come out for leaders to take it. Just like the day you decided to go on your own.
Some businesses will rise, others will fall. Given the hand we’ve been dealt, no shame on the latter as long as we know we’ve tried. But if we make it through, we’ll be stronger, much stronger, on the other end.
So let’s reset, switch our minds to start-up mode and do it allover one more time.
