After a few challenging years, heading into 2023 is somewhat of a relief for small businesses. While many things are returning to normal, however, business owners continue to face challenges including fragile supply chains, talent shortages and security threats while also being haunted by that niggling feeling that the next uncertain event may be just around the corner.
Uncertainty is now the rule rather than the exception. Having the foresight to anticipate and plan for volatility is the number one competitive advantage for 2023. Recent times have reminded us that resilience in small business can be the difference been surviving and not. If you fail to incorporate resilience into your business, you leave your future to the winds of uncertainty.
Building resilience requires a shift in thinking and a willingness to actively address the weak points in your organisation. Here are five things to think about if you want to become a more flexible and agile business that’s ready for the curve balls of 2023.
Monitor constantly. Sometimes pivotal events are dramatic and obvious and other times they can creep up on you. Having monitoring systems in place that can alert you to drops in revenue, shakiness is customer retention, disdain amongst staff or other potential cracks in your business will allow you to address the issue before it becomes an emergency. If you think you do need to make a change, the earlier you can assess what needs to change and how fast, the more strategic and planned that change can be.
People are number one. If you’re not thinking about how you hold onto the people you already have and how you can incentivise new people to join you, you’re in dangerous territory. How is your current culture? Is it giving your employees a sense of purpose? Do people feel valued? Rewarded? Are they excited about the future ahead, even if that involves uncertainty and change? A weak organisational culture leaves an organisation more vulnerable to issues and disruptions.
Strong relationships, know your customers. Listen to your customers and know as much about them as you can. Are they getting what they need from your business? Do they feel like they belong to your community? Frequent and genuine communication with customers is important. A happy and valued customer will ride the waves of uncertainty with you when that’s required.
Additional or recurring revenue streams. Could your business build resilience through diversification, branching out into new sales channels or launching different products/services? Can you build a recurring revenue stream into your customer offering, like a membership/subscription option? At Ninja Parc, we recently introduced a smaller footprint option with a more affordable price entry point for franchisees while also expanding the product offering with a new space for toddlers, broadening our target demographic instantly. Even if you don’t hit “play” on your ideas straight away, identifying them and doing some of the groundwork in advance lets you keep the option up your sleeve should you need it.
Take care of yourself. When you’re not frazzled, you can do more when a big push is required. You can look at problems with a positive skew and even find huge opportunities hiding within a challenge. As a small business owner, asking for help and taking time to rest, eat properly and switch off is a really important part of building a resilient business.
