eBusiness Weekly
Arthur Marara
In Proverbs 24:27, King Solomon uttered some good advice, “Do your planning and prepare your fields before building your house.” What Solomon is uttering is wat ,a people do not understand today and the reason why many business are collapsing. You need to plan and preparing your fields first before thinking of other things. The focus is simply to invest in your business. It is the very same business that will enable you eventually to build your house. I will take this in detail in a separate article the issue of priorities, however for today, I am using this to introduce a vital part of the art of survival in difficult times, investing in the business itself.
#9. Invest in your business.
What you focus on grows, and what you neglect dies! This is one of the principles that I discovered ad have applied constantly in my life and in my business. Tough times give you an opportunity to actually focus more on investing in your business. Spruce up your offices by thoroughly cleaning them, and putting a coat of paint. Develop and upgrade the website, come up with a new corporate image, train your human resources, invest in new technology and anything that will make your business look more impressive and run more impressively.
Embrace and invest in technology
The only technology some people understand is WhatsApp. You cannot be a serious business person when you still rely on your Personal Assistant to open and reply an email for you. Times have changed, and you cannot blame absence of computers before your time as the reason why you cannot operate the basic functions of your computer.
New and better ways of communication are there now. Invest in better and stable internet connections both at work and home. Learn to work from anywhere. Improve your typing skills and speed. You can do a video calls with clients, and your staff members without necessarily being in an office.
Why should you burn fuel to the office simply because you want to see a person when you can do the very same assignment online in a cheaper and faster way. I have done lots of talks and trainings over Zoom and Facebook during this Covid-19 period.
Equip your boardrooms with modern communication facilities.
Depending with your business model, clients do not necessarily have to come to your office. You can do video conferencing from the comfort and privacy of your boardroom. Secure ipads, or tablets, and data for your staff members so that they can be easily connected. The future is digital! That is why it’s said, “go digital, or go home”.
#10. Find someone to mentor you through these tough times.
It is Sir. Isaac Newton who once said that, “If I have seen further than my contemporaries, it’s because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.” Greatness demands great humility. Find someone who can mentor you in this journey. Mentoring allows you to benefit in 20 minutes or less what took someone 20years to learn. Find someone you respect who has experienced what you are going through and ask them to guide you in the journey. Do not pretend or try to appear as everything is moving the way that you want. Just learn to be totally honest with them, take them through the problem, and indicate the type of help that you need. A number of times what you term a problem is not actually a problem when you subject to people who are more exposed.
#11. Learn from the experience.
Do not waste pain. In fact, the worst that you can do for yourself is to waste pain. Difficulties present an opportunity for you to see what works and what does not work. Do more of what works and avoid doing what doesn’t work. Instead of complaining about tough times, let them stretch you and teach you more about what you can do. Learn from the experience, and do things differently emanating from the lessons that you have learnt from the tough times. What would you do differently next time?
Stay ahead of your game
Do not stop improving and becoming better at what you do. Better businesses start with better business leaders. There is never an end to the journey to personal and professional development. Focus on delivering an amazing customer experience and not just delivering invoices. You cannot afford the luxury of losing clients during this period. I will deal with customer experience in the next editions.
Let me conclude this article with an exhortation to keep on keeping on. Stuart Fuller, head of global legal services for KPMG, shares the mantra of KPMG Global, “Don’t stop what you’re doing — change the way you do it.” This is what need to do. “Don’t stop engaging with your teams; don’t stop engaging with your clients; don’t stop having client meetings or client conferences or insight sessions—just convert the way you do it all into the virtual,” he said from KPMG’s Sydney offices.
◆ Arthur Marara is a corporate law attorney, keynote and peak performance speaker, business strategy facilitator commanding the stage with his delightful humour, raw energy, and wealth of life experiences. He is a financial wellness expert and is passionate about addressing the issues of wellness, sales, business leadership and strategy. Arthur is the author of the “Personal Development Toolkit”, “Keys to Effective Time Management” among other inspirational books. Follow him on social media, or WhatsApp him on +263718867255 or email [email protected].
