Usually three-letter words are OK, it’s the four-letter words you need to avoid! Yet it’s hard to find too many people having FUN in their businesses today with all the changes that are being introduced and forced upon us due to COVID-19. The real question is, were you having fun in your business before all this coronavirus stuff hit? Unfortunately we find too many business owners who aren’t having fun in their business any more. But it doesn’t have to be that way!
We’ve been big advocates for small business owners utilizing their Know Like Trust (“KLT”) lists more purposefully to help their businesses. It can help with anything from growing the business to finding good people to having folks to bounce ideas off. So why are the business owners who have been using KLT for things like forming good relationships with their bankers getting lambasted by the media saying it’s not “fair” that certain people got funding and others don’t? Maybe the ones getting the funding are the ones who are in better shape and are on top of things like this due to how they normally run their business with a focus on KLT.
One of our new mantras has been to “embrace the forced changes” and apply them to your business. Don’t waste time and energy fighting the changes and pining for the way things were.
We are all continuing to learn a lot during this COVID-19 outbreak. One of the more interesting takeaways from this entire scenario is the definition of what’s an “essential” business. During the show we talked about how “essential” businesses and operations are defined in our home state of Ohio which has been one of the states at the forefront of the coronavirus response thanks to the leadership of our Governor Mike DeWine.
One of the things we have a lot of experience with is turnaround situations in business. A turnaround situation in our books is simply defined as taking a company that is losing money and turning it around to making a profit. Why is this important in the current Coronavirus/COVID-19 world?
To say we live in uncertain times might be an understatement given the recent and ongoing changes to lives worldwide as we all wrestle with the fallout caused by the Coronavirus and COVID-19. As a business owner, it can be twice as difficult as you are dealing not only with your personal situation, but also your business. So how do you plan in uncertain times?
As you can probably appreciate, many folks don’t like to plan under normal circumstances. But when it comes to uncertain times and your business, as the owner you really have no other choice but to pull a plan together. The key is where do you start and how do you do it in a way that you can take action quickly?
we are thrilled to be joined on this week’s show by Sheri Jeavons, the President and Owner of Power Presentations). Sheri started Power Presentations in 1993 and is a leading expert when it comes to all things related to presenting whether it be in-person or virtually.
We are joined by Scott Sofer the owner of Bickford Flavors, a provider of over 200 stock flavors to the food and beverage industry. Scott is a 3rd generation entrepreneur, has owned several companies, and is passionate about giving back and helping young people learn about entrepreneurship.
We are feeling old as we celebrate another Dirty Secrets of Small Business milestone with our 200th episode! Who would have though 4 years ago that a couple of radio/podcast novices like us would still be going strong? It’s been a fun ride and we feel like we’re just starting to hit our stride!
We are joined in studio by Elisabeth Sapell of All City Candy who shared her story of jumping from the non-profit world into the business world to start her own company in 2013 after growing up with parents who were business owners. Elisabeth is also a graduate of Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program (https://www.goldmansachs.com/citizenship/10000-small-businesses/US/) and shared her experience with the program as well!