Bk: 0:00

Welcome to the BK Talks business podcast. I'm your host, bk, and I am a female entrepreneur with a passion for international business and entrepreneurship. I've run businesses in the Middle East, where I've lived for the past 10 years, as well as in my home country, botswana. I am so excited to bring you this podcast that celebrates the entrepreneurial spirit of women in Africa, the Middle East and everywhere in between. Whether you are already running a business or just considering taking the leap, this podcast is for you. Get ready for some laughs, some insider secrets and some business breakthroughs that just might change the way you think about entrepreneurship. I cannot wait to hear about your entrepreneurial journey. Thanks for tuning in. Let's get started. Hi there business friends. Welcome back to the podcast.

Bk: 0:55

If you have been feeling a little bit discouraged lately in your business, then this episode is for you, because running a small business is not easy even during the best of times, and, according to some statistics, an estimated 30% of small businesses fail within the first two years. 50% fail within five years, then only 25 percent of businesses last 15 years or longer. Any small business owner will tell you that running a small business is challenging. I will tell you running a small business is challenging, but when circumstances get tough, running a business becomes even greater of a challenge and throughout the years, many events have occurred that you know have placed a squeeze on businesses, both big and small. When we look back in history, events like the Great Depression yes, it happened in the West, but it infiltrated and definitely affected us here in the African region, the East, the South and everywhere else. When we look back at the 2008 housing market collapse in the US, that was a huge blow for the economy and the ripple effects went far and wide. We think about the 2020 pandemic, and in between that, we had various downturns and recessions. So during these difficult times, many businesses folded under pressure. They simply weren't able to keep going. But many businesses managed to survive during these crises and some even thrived. But I think if you look back, particularly at what happened during the pandemic, you realize that businesses can make it through hard times. They just sometimes needs to be a little bit of creativity and you may have to make some tough decisions and take some risky action.

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In this episode, we are going to talk about how we can do that, how we can steady ourselves and deal with the challenges that might come up. Think of this episode as a survival guide for your business. The first thing we'll need to focus on, especially during times of challenge, is to manage our mindset. If your business is struggling right now, it's absolutely essential that you manage your mindset. When things get tough, it's really easy to enter this downward mental spiral, and when this happens, the problems seem too overwhelming to even begin to deal with. As you work to stabilize and turn around your business, it's important to maintain a positive and a growth mindset. This means that you are resolved not to give up. You decide that this is going to be a season of growth. Even during this difficult time, and even in the most difficult of situations and circumstances, there is something that we can learn that can position us positively and advantageously for the future. So, instead of having the tendency to retreat and give up and be defeated, rather be observant and find lessons out of the situation. Almost every business leader has encountered struggles similar to yours. They are successful because they persevered and they were resilient, and if you want your business to succeed, you need that mental toughness.

Bk: 5:11

I just finished reading a book called Ikigai by Hector Garcia and Francesca Mirales, and towards the end of the book, they talk about this concept of anti-fragility. This is a concept that is beyond being resilient, and we know that being resilient means that you can withstand difficulty or you can withstand harm. But this idea of being anti-fragile is rather getting stronger the more things come at you. And in the book. One of the illustrations that they give is the Greek myth of Hercules fighting the Hydra. So if your Greek mythology is a little bit rusty, don't worry, I got you. So in this story, hercules was given the task to kill a nine-headed serpent which was terrorizing the countryside in Lerna. When he got there and confronted the beast, he realized that every time he cut off one of the serpent's heads, two more heads grew in that place. So with every wound, the serpent got stronger. So that's the concept of anti-fragility and this is what we should cultivate both in our lives and in our businesses.

Bk: 6:43

But how do we do that? How do we strengthen this mindset, and what practical things can we do? So first, I think we need to overcome the negative mindset, and in four steps. This is how we can do it. First, we need to pay attention. We need to pay attention to what thoughts we allow to take root in our minds. We need to be able to identify unhelpful mental patterns as they occur. Second, we need to question as those negative thoughts come, question that Is what you are thinking, really true? And then, third, silence those thoughts. Stop allowing those thoughts from blinding you to solutions and to opportunities. Stop them from stealing your mental energy and finally, replace, replace those thoughts with more positive, solution-seeking dialogue. As you shut down that inner critique, fill that silence with positive, helpful, solution-seeking dialogue. So, as you push through problems and challenges, remember why you got into business in the first place. Seek to tap into those emotions, those desires, that vision that you had at the beginning, that thing that originally pushed you into creating your business.

Bk: 8:22

When we look at the problems that we are facing, particularly in our business, before we can find a solution and often the very best thing to help you look for a solution is just clarifying the problem Think about how you got to where you currently are and think about this objectively. How did we get here? What happened? What did you not and what didn't you anticipate? What did you do? What didn't you do? What mistakes did you make? What did you miss that might have contributed to the result right now? To the result right now, and some common root causes could be. Maybe the market has just changed and you didn't notice. Maybe there was a failure to understand your target customer or your market. Perhaps it was just because you had a poor pricing strategy, or you just didn't have enough money to stay competitive, or one that is very subtle but very common is that you grew too fast, too soon. So if we really want a kind of a roadmap or an idea of where our solution could be, we need to be able to put our finger on the root of the problem. If you're feeling sick, you go to the doctor and the first thing they try to do is determine what is causing the illness, what is causing these symptoms, and the same principle is true in business. Getting to the root cause will give you more clarity on the solutions or the potential solutions or just those next steps that you need to take towards a lasting solution.

Bk: 10:18

Another thing to do in times of challenge is focus on your customers. The heart of every business is the customer. If you don't have customers, you don't have a business. So when you're deciding on actions to take to strengthen your business or to kind of fill gaps and manage challenges, always keep your customers front and center. Before making any changes, consider how these changes will affect the customer experience. If a customer experience is one of your key competitive advantage, then you want to be especially careful about making huge, potentially disruptive changes. If you do make changes that will directly affect the customer, communicate, communicate, communicate and make sure you communicate clearly, communicate, communicate and make sure you communicate clearly. Explain to the customer why you have to make these changes and the outcomes that you expect.

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If it's problems, you know, if it's a global crisis like that we had with the pandemic, it's especially important to keep focus on your customers. People will remember the actions that you take and if you seek to serve your customers, even at the expense of profit, you'll build up a huge amount of goodwill. I know quite a few companies and businesses that did not charge for services during the pandemic. Charge for services during the pandemic Everything they gave away for free and that kept a loyal customer base even when things were back to normal and the market was getting back into full swing. So it is hugely profitable to think about keeping your customers, and sometimes at the expense of profit. So if you are going through a difficult time in your business.

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You might also want to be honest with how things are going, really assess what is going on, and one of the ways that you can do this is a simple SWOT analysis. You know the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and it gives a beautiful framework for analyzing how your business is doing. So the strengths these are things that you have control over that are working well in your business. Focus on trying to develop these areas even further. In the weaknesses box, these are the things that are not working well in your business, and your goal is to change or eliminate these things completely so that they don't continue to damage your business in any way. Under opportunities, you are looking at external factors that have the potential to benefit your business in any way. Under opportunities, you are looking at external factors that have the potential to benefit your business. The more you can capitalize on these opportunities, the more success you are likely to have. And then the final quadrant is threats these are external factors that could possibly hurt your business. Avoid these things or find ways to adapt to them.

Bk: 13:40

Performing a SWOT analysis can be hard work, but it is a clear-headed analysis that will help you overcome the weaknesses that you're experiencing. It will help you capitalize on your strengths and take advantage of your unique opportunities, and if you have a team, even if it's just one other person who can help you with the input here and the brainstorming, it could be very helpful to get another perspective, to expand your thinking and your view. Once you've done your SWOT analysis, now determine the objectives that you'll pursue and then create a plan for achieving these objectives. This will give you the clarity that you need to move forward. Sometimes it's just a step-by-step plan that will get you out of the rut. Sometimes all we need to do is take it day by day, but those days you need a plan so that, little by little, you are moving towards a goal.

Bk: 14:46

Start with your strengths. How will you double down on the things that you are already doing well? Then look at your weaknesses. How can you change, how can you minimize, how can you even eliminate these weaknesses altogether? Next, you want to move on to the opportunities. Is there a new market that you can move into? Can you implement a new technology that could help you be more efficient? Are you a brick and mortar business that might have an opportunity to move or to expand online? And then finish with the threats. How will you avoid or adapt to these things that could hurt your business? Remember, we are trying and we are working towards creating both objectives and a plan for how we will meet those objectives. Your objectives need to be measurable, meaning you must be able to determine whether you have hit that objective. They need to be realistic to your goal setting and, of course, let's put deadlines. You set a specific date by which you want to meet your objectives.

Bk: 16:03

Another practical thing that you could look at doing is reducing costs. Sometimes our businesses need us to reduce the amount of money going out. To reduce the amount of money going out, but we need to be careful and be as precise as we can as we do this, because cutting too many costs in your business can create more harm than good and can make it even more difficult to recover. But then again, cutting too little and you won't free up enough cash to keep your business going. So start by cutting discretionary costs. These are costs that are not necessary to run your business, for example, a business lunch. It's a great idea of something that you can cut.

Bk: 16:56

Look at ways that you can reduce costs but still achieve the same outcome. Can you reduce your travel costs by using video conferencing technology, for example, or if you have online businesses like mine, think about what subscriptions you can cut in the time being that will not hurt your business. If you have been paying for a monthly subscription, perhaps look at paying for the year, because it almost always works out cheaper to pay for the whole year of software and the tools than paying it month on month. So and these are for the tools in your business that you can absolutely not live without Other tools that are nice to have can be paused for a while while you get things under control.

Bk: 17:51

Next, think if you have a physical office space. Talk to your landlord. They might be willing to lower your rent or even create a new lease for you altogether. But if that's not something that is feasible, you know if they won't reduce your rent, then think about moving to a less expensive building. Think about whether or not you need office space at all building. Think about whether or not you need office space at all.

Bk: 18:20

Another way you can really cut costs, or another avenue you can look at, is look at your supply chain. Talk to your suppliers. Some of them might be willing to give you discounts. Explore different avenues with them. I'm sure most of the time, your suppliers are willing to negotiate on payment terms and buying conditions that could help you save money. So while you are looking for various ways to save more money and make more money, you obviously have to keep an eye on the money coming in and the money going out. Just keep a very close eye on your cash flow as much as possible. Try to send out invoices in a timely fashion. Follow up with customers who fall behind on payments. Make sure that your bills are paid on time and that you also get paid on time so that you can plan for purchases and payments and things accordingly.

Bk: 19:29

And if you really are having trouble or you want, kind of like, some specialized help, consider then hiring or meeting with a certified accountant. Get professional help. They could probably help you with implementing money saving strategies regarding tax and all sorts of things. There are a number of specific actions that you can probably take to reduce your tax burden, for example. So meeting with a professional could be very, very beneficial for you just to get clarity on how you can maximize the money coming in and minimize money going out. An accountant may also be able to help you, depending on where you are and how your country works, to secure financial assistance from local agencies, government organizations. Yes, this is a generalization, but small businesses are generally good for the economy and government agencies are willing to provide financial help for struggling businesses at times. So sometimes it's just finding out what is available for small businesses in your area. Then you find that you can get help that way. So An accountant can also help you think through critical financial decisions. Many business owners kind of struggle with absorbing all the financial details about their company, so an accountant can crunch all the numbers for you and then provide you with an easy to digest report so that you can fully understand what your numbers mean and where you stand.

Bk: 21:22

When we look at publicity and marketing, marketing is always a double-edged sword. It costs money to get your company name out there right. The money you spend on marketing can't be spent on essential things like payroll and bills. But on the other hand, if you stop doing marketing, you don't connect with more customers, which decreases your available funds. So what should we do then? When our business is struggling and we need to market but we are kind of tight on cash, we could use low cost marketing to simultaneously cut our budget and then increase our efforts. So traditional advertising things like TV radio billboards are really really expensive, like TV radio billboards are really really expensive. So think about maximizing on the lesser expensive methods. For example, ask your existing customers or clients for referrals.

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Think about using just organic word of mouth to help get your business name out there and bring in new business. Join local business networking groups. Write, get involved in writing blog posts for websites in your industry or get involved in industry events that could get your name out there industry events that could get your name out there. Think about other, cheaper media appearances that you could be in. For example, appear on podcasts. These are great to even reach an audience that you might not even have been able to reach before. Think about sponsoring local events, whether charitable or sporting. Wherever your brand is, people will see it and this could be a potential way to get new leads. Host events or classes, whether it is locally or online. Um, yeah, there's just so many different ways. Use social media as much as you can.

Bk: 23:38

So this all really just means persisting through the challenge, persisting and being creative, coming up with those creative solutions, maybe thinking a little bit outside the box to kind of solve your particular problem. Sometimes the challenge can even cause you to pivot to a completely new business model, right, for example, polaroid is an example of a company that didn't approach problems with persistence or creativity. It was a digital photography business. It began in the late 90s. Polaroid executives continued to insist that people wanted hard copy photos. So in 2001, it wasn't a surprise when they were forced to file for bankruptcy because nobody was printing photos anymore. Everything was on the phone. So it was really really difficult for them because they refused to see how the market was changing and pivot with what was going on. But there's a company called Yelp in the US which they were more creative and more persistent to overcome the difficulties that they were facing, and their story is a little bit different, because this particular company started off as a platform for getting recommendations from friends, but when they couldn't get traction, they couldn't get their business to kind of take off. They then pivoted to focusing on making it easier to write business reviews instead. So instead of it being more of a social thing, they kind of pivoted to business reviews and yeah, that's how they became the successful company that they are now. And even in the worst situations there are still options.

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Remember, during the pandemic, many companies pivoted in very big ways. I'm sure you can remember companies in your area, in your country, that quickly pivoted during the pandemic, or businesses that suddenly had a huge demand for their services. Think about the company Zoom, for example. Did you even know about Zoom before the pandemic? But they were kind of trudging along. The pandemic happened and suddenly there was worldwide demand for their product and they pivoted by really improving their product insanely quickly so that it can meet the demand that they were experiencing. When we think of airlines, instead of transporting people, most airlines quickly optimized for cargo operations because there was need to move equipment, medical equipment around the world that either changed their business model completely or slightly to meet the demands that they saw or that they experienced, or that really stepped up their services and marketing to meet the demand that they were experiencing.

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So think about your own business now. How can you pivot in your business? How can you stay afloat and meet the demand of your clients? We've talked about some of the ways that we can pivot our businesses. If we need to, we can look at new sales channels. Think about your customers, your customers. The group of customers that you have is not one lump demographic right. You can segment your customers so that you can serve. You can give specific segments what they specifically need. Maybe you can focus on a particular feature in your business or particular product in your business. Perhaps you need to change your revenue model altogether or your pricing and positioning. Perhaps it just takes you looking at adopting a new technology that could make things work better, faster and more efficient for you.

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The reality is, every business, no matter if it's Apple or you know your very small business in your very small corner of your world every business faces challenges and these difficulties don't need to sink your business abilities, don't need to sink your business. You don't have to give up. You just might need to just be a little bit more creative and think differently. Persistence does produce success. Think about that concept of being anti-fragile. What would that look like in your life, in your business, and how could you embody that mindset of being anti-fragile?

Bk: 29:05

All right, my friend, that is it for today's episode. I hope you got some nuggets from this, from our conversation today. And, um, there were some things that you could probably keep in your back pocket, um, for when things are a little bit testy in your business, um. But if you are going through a hard time, I hope these are helpful, even just to get your mind working and thinking of how you can get out of the situation that you're in or how you could ride that wave without drowning and losing your business. So thank you so much for spending time with me today. If you want to continue the conversation, feel free to send me a message on the socials. Everything will be linked in the show notes. I'll be happy to hear what you think. Talk to you next week, same time, same place. Bye for now.