Your business has been running awhile but you just can’t make enough money to live on. It’s not actually making a loss every month, but it’s just not enough to survive on. You love your business, you love what you do and still believe it’s got the potential to achieve something. You’ve sought advice (business advisor or accountant) and there is the opportunity to market and grow this … but you simply haven’t got the resources to cover things.
Read Time Management: 11 Really Useful Tips
Here are a few ideas on alternatives to quitting business:
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Go back to ‘work’.
That is, work for someone else full time. One of three things will happen. You will actually find working for someone else and not worrying about debt collecting or hunting for leads is nice and you’re enjoying the traditional 9-5 position. You may decide to actually fully close the business down and be an employee who has quality of life, less stress and a regular and consistent pay packet or you may find in time you can revert to part time employment and resume growing your business again. Or, you may hate being an employee that much it actually motivates you to change how you were doing business, go back to it and really put some hard effort into making it work this time.
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Reduce your hours.
Similar to the above scenario, you get a part time job which will give you some income, pay the bills but which will give you time to work on your business. This is the business model that many new business owners take, rather than jumping in the deep end. It will give you a breather whilst still working on and in your business. If you had two people working in the business, possibly one will stay and the other will go into employment.
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Take on contract work.
Taking on a contract may also allow you the breather you need to regroup and re-establish your finances. That contract may or may not be in the industry/area that your business is but it does allow you the ability to get some funds back in the coffers; which might be later used to spend (well) on marketing, a website or advertising.
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Affect some substantial cutbacks.
This may mean that rather than you being the boss and having staff, you in fact have to terminate the majority (if not all) of your staff and ‘go back on the tools’ again yourself and work in the business. Keeping in mind, you now don’t really have a business, but instead have a job. However, at the end of the day, you have the structure there, and if you are able to grow things again, you can always re-recruit new team. This isn’t just ‘trimming the fat’ but seriously lopping off the branches. Not managed well, it can actually be detrimental to the business, you need to handle it right, especially with customers who may see it as a preface to closure.
One final word, if you are struggling in business, there is one thing you should not cut back on – that is marketing and business growth activities. Select wisely, do your due diligence, but this is the one area you should not cut or cull. Call me on 0411 622 666 for easy coaching.
