Some background, my wife and I quit our day jobs to start a business in 2012. It took about a year of planning and the initial struggle was very real, but since then, we’ve managed to grow our business every year. It’s been an awesome journey for us and it’s afforded us plenty of opportunities both personally and professionally.
Fast forward to January 2020 and the Coronavirus Pandemic happened. Both our shops are based in the CBD serving the office crowd and with most working from home, we saw our sales drop by more than 95% in the space of 2 weeks. At that point we hadn’t known what financial assistance we would be getting from the government if any and we had to make the decision to shut our doors to avoid further losses.
Words and images by Bare Bo, owner of this restaurant. Follow him on Medium for more articles.
Here are some of the key things I’ve learnt since then.
1. Focus on what I can do and not what I can’t
We were taken by surprise at how quickly our sales dropped. It was only a matter of days when it seemed like our sales halved everyday and we couldn’t react fast enough. The uncertainty of the situation brought up a lot of fear, anxiety and panic. We didn’t know how long it would take for financial help to come, whether our landlords, suppliers etc would offer us any assistance and we didn’t know how long we had to shut for. All these added up to sleepless nights and worry. However, looking back, the main thing that got me through that initial panic and indecision was to focus on what I could do rather than what was out of my control. Slowly clarity of mind returned and I could make better decisions.
2. Cash Preservation & Re-Capitalisation
This next point is extremely crucial. I took the immediate step of transferring all my cash from a business transaction account to an online savings account where no automatic payments were drawn from. The business transaction account had multiple direct debits going through from our various suppliers and I had to move the money to a seperate account to allow me to prioritise what payments could be made. I also let my business credit cards bump over their credit limits and did not make any payments to bring down the balance owing. If the credit cards were not already at their limits, I would have put a block on the credit cards to stop any supplier from putting through automatic payments. This first step was extremely important as it bought me time to negotiate with all my suppliers and prioritising payments.
3. Honest Leadership
Before we shut down, there was a lot of confusion from staff and I knew I had to step up as a business leader. I believe the best leaders are born during difficult times and I had to decide how I should lead my staff during this time. I focused on providing a consistent message of hope and looking towards what we can do, rather than what we can’t. But I was also honest and vulnerable in admitting that I didn’t have all the answers, but that we would work it out together.
4. Negotiating With Suppliers
Right off the bat, I will say that it was and still is so much easier dealing with small suppliers than the larger companies. Of the landlords that we had to deal with, the smaller landlord responded quickly and said that we could suspend our rental payments. As for our larger landlord, a listed company based in Singapore, it’s been 2 months since we’ve shut and we are still awaiting a decision on any rental aid we could get from them. I’ve noticed the same with all our suppliers, from providores, butchers, cleaning services, equipment financiers, it’s always the smaller businesses that were empathetic and said we are in this together, don’t worry, you start paying when you can. With that said, I have found that being responsive and transparent with whoever I was negotiating with was the best strategy. I plainly told my suppliers and landlords that with no cash flow coming in, I simply couldn’t pay my bills on time. So far none of my suppliers have yet pursued legal action or taken any measures to recover whatever is owing to them. I have made sure to constantly update my suppliers of the situation we are in.
5. Getting To Know Our Suppliers
I alluded to this point earlier, this situation that we are in has made me realize which suppliers I want to do business with in the future, that the lowest price isn’t always the best. Unfortunately, it’s taken a pandemic to show me which businesses I can trust to have a relationship with moving forward.
6. Actively Seeking Emotional Support
I am extremely blessed to have the unconditional support from my wife and various family members. But beyond that, I also rely on my friends, church members and my faith. But what I have also learned is to actively seek out others who have gone through similar experiences to try and understand how they got through their challenges. Initially, there was a lot of guilt or remorse, where I kept playing a loop in my mind of what I could have done better to avoid the situation I was in. But having spoken to others working in large multinational corporations, I realized that for a small business like ours, there was nothing that I could have done to prepare for an event like this pandemic if the much larger companies with far greater resources hadn’t. That stopped me from playing that constant loop of self-doubt and propelled me to focus on recovery and next steps.
7. Innovation While Pivoting In A Crisis
With our shops shut and having zero revenue, we knew we had to think of a way to continue selling something and to meet the needs of the community. Most restaurants and cafes resorted to delivery platforms like Uber Eats, however, because we were in the CBD, it wasn’t viable for us.
Others were selling groceries, delivering prepped meal kits, but we knew we had to come up with something that was different, to stand out from the crowd.
So we came up with the idea of delivering chilled, ready to oven pies targeting young families. With kids being homeschooled and parents having to work from home, it was a challenge for most to cook up a healthy meal after a long day. We set up an online store on our website and told everyone we knew about our new service and thankfully the response so far has been great. The lesson here was even though we were desperate and knew we had to do something different, we couldn’t just follow what everyone else was doing. The same principles still applied, we had to differentiate ourselves and not forget about having a USP (unique selling proposition). We focused on chilled ready to eat meals for the family rather than a delivery on demand model because it allowed us to prep daily in batches and deliver our meals using an optimal route for the day. Also, delivery didn’t become as time-critical as a typical hot food delivery would, for example, pizza delivery or the Uber Eats model. This also meant we could deliver to a much wider area than would be possible otherwise.
8. Never Mourn Over Lost Money, Focus On Hope Instead
I won’t lie, there were days when I was tempted to entertain the thought of just giving up. Or the worry of being homeless and bankrupt would overwhelm me. But the good thing about a time like this is that it allows you to honestly reflect on what really is important in life, and for me, that’s family. Even if I had lost my business, I would still have my family and if I still had that, I can still have hope. So if there’s one thing that you should take away from this, it’s to focus on what you have and what’s important rather than what you may or may not have. Hope is a powerful thing, and it can be scary to hope, but it is the one thing that will get you through the most difficult of times and
as long as you still have breath, there is always hope.
TL;DR
1. Don’t worry about things I can’t control and focus on what I can.
2. Stop all automatic payments to buy time and preserve cash.
3. My employees need me to be transparent and vulnerable to trust in my leadership.
4. Be responsive to my suppliers and call them first, don’t wait for them to chase you for payments.
5. Adversity shows me who my true friends are and in the case of a business, which suppliers and relationships are valuable in the long run.
6. Actively seek out support and talk to others honestly about my situation, do not ignore my anxiety and emotional needs.
7. Even in desperate times, we still have to stand apart from others and differentiate ourselves.
8. Never give up, there’s always hope.
