Behaviour 1:
Be in Control
In the current climate you may feel that you and your business are at the mercy of
forces beyond your control. Many owner managers will feel paralysed by a sense
of helplessness and simply wait for the hand that fate deals them. Winners take
control of their own destiny and create the future they want for their businesses
and themselves.
There is little any of us can do about the macroeconomic climate, nevertheless as
an owner manager you can continue to control what you do in your business.
You can still have inspiring vision and communicate it to your people; you can still
be proud and confident about what makes your business great; you can continue
to be strong and rigorous in managing your business; you can still make plans and
invest wisely. And most importantly you can continue to grasp opportunities that
others are too timid to spot.
Behaviour 2:
Be Confident
In the current climate it is tough to focus on the future and you may feel that you
are just existing week by week. Of course a short term agenda can be dispiriting,
both for you and for other people in your business. And at some point in the not
too distant future there will be an upturn. Winners continue to have confidence
in a clear and compelling vision of the future. It is important to look beyond the
short term and have a confident and clear view of the medium to longer term.
Stay confident about what makes your business great; stay confident about your
passion for your business; stay confident about the future you will create for your
business and yourself. Communicate that vision in a way which inspires other
people to help you bring it about. This confidence will spread to other people in
your business, to your customers and to your suppliers. And the effect will be
dramatic.
Behaviour 3:
Be Distinctive
In tough economic times some owner managers will scrap and scrabble for any
business they can get their hands on, just to stay in the game. The danger of this
is that you lose sight of the distinctive benefits that your product or service
delivers to your customers. And you can end up being treated like a commodity
and coming under severe price pressure. Winners clearly articulate the distinctive
benefits they bring to their customers. Ensure that what you offer is distinctive,
and that your customers are prepared to pay for that distinctiveness. Hold fast to
your distinctiveness and articulate it at every opportunity. If you lose it, your
offering will be treated like a commodity and you will come under price pressure.
And if you succumb to that pressure and reduce your prices, you are actually
giving away profit and it is very difficult to make up for that lost profit in increased
sales. In fact, if you are clear about your distinctive benefits then you are
probably better off increasing prices rather than reducing them. Even if that
means losing some of your customers. They are probably the customers that
don’t really value your distinctiveness at all and it may well even be costing you
money to service them.
Behaviour 4:
Be Strong
The current climate means that now, more than ever, you need to be absolutely
rigorous in managing your business – that means focusing on the things that really
matter; managing cash with a religious fervour, challenging costs and waste at
every opportunity. Make immediate bottom line improvements by driving down
debtor days, insisting sales staff adhere to a tight pricing policy, negotiating
discounts with suppliers, reducing fixed costs and shedding unprofitable
customers. You will need a plan robust enough to survive variances and you will
need indicators that act as early warning signals and tell you at a glance how the
business is fairing.
Behaviour 5:
Be Wise
In tough economic times, some owner managers will simply hunker down and
stop all investment. While this preserves cash in the short term, it restricts the
ability to grasp the upside of the downturn and is demotivating for everyone. For
the other owner managers who take big risks in an attempt to drive sales, winners
continue to make wise investments for the future. In order to do this, you need a
clear plan of the future you want to create for your business and for yourself and
you will then need the realism to differentiate between those investments which
are truly crucial to bringing that future about and those which actually do not
need to be made. In particular, before moving into new markets and launching
new products, consider whether you have fully exploited your existing niches.
Sticking to the knitting, or in other words selling more of your existing products
and services to your existing customers and people just like them, is far more
profitable and far less risky than diversification.
Behaviour 6:
Be Ready
Tough economic times are also times of great turmoil and great change and
change creates opportunities. Winners are always ready to grasp the
opportunities brought about by change.
The economic downturn might be threatening the very survival of some of our
companies, but for more robust businesses it presents an opportunity to redefine
their sector and their position within that sector. That means really
understanding your market and keeping a keen eye on your competitors. You
may find that you have access to markets, potential customers, premises and
people who in better times might not be so readily available to you. From weaker
competitors you may be able to acquire customers, key staff or other resources.
You may even find yourself in a position to acquire some of your competitor’s
businesses. In all cases you need to be ready to seize opportunities to grasp the
upside of the downturn.
Challenging times are the true test of great leadership. Now if the time for owner
managers to show the vision, determination, resilience and courage of the great
leader. Take control of your own destiny, be confident, be distinctive, be strong,
be wise and be ready to seize the upturn of the downturn. Create a different and
better future for your business and for you. And be a winner.
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