For the past five months, I’ve been coaching entrepreneurs from all over the world as they navigate the impacts of COVID on their business.
Over time, some common themes start to emerge, which we’ll explore here as well as Part One and Part Two.
If you’d like to apply for coaching, please fill in a contact form and I’ll be in touch.
Here’s what we’ve been talking about…

Is this a good time to start a new business?
I’ve been working with several entrepreneurs who are deliberating launching a new business, either as a spin-off or a separate side project.
They are unsure what to make of the current market situation; on one hand there’s huge disruption, on the other hand these are the times where innovative models can thrive.
My view is that this is a great time to test a new business idea.
Why rely on intuition to make a big investment decision, when instead you could run some cheap tests to better understand the opportunity?
Don’t build an expensive app, don’t hire a team, don’t sign a lease – better to run a pilot or build a Minimum Viable Product that gives you valuable insight without the heavy price tag.
There’s a great book called Testing Business Ideas by David Bland and Alexander Osterwalder that I am constantly recommending at the end of these sessions, full of clever experiments, most of which can be performed in 2020 conditions. 

Business Loans: Money Machine or Story Preserver?
Entire industries have been shut for the year, such as tourism, hospitality, airlines and entertainment.
This has affected everyone in each field, be they underperformers or superstars, which can feel like an injustice.
For businesses with heavily reduced cashflow, a business loan can be quite alluring.
I always ask these founders the same question: is this loan designed to buy you a money machine, or preserve your story?
Loans aren’t good or bad, they’re a tool that does a particular job.
If you use a loan to buy an asset or “money machine”, you can generate income faster than it needs to be repaid, and grow your business in a reasonable safe way.
e.g. expanding your production capacity, bringing on a great sales force, launching a new program, etc.

If you use a loan to continue covering your expenses, but don’t create a new money machine, then you’re digging a very expensive hole.
This is a huge temptation, because it preserves the story you’ve attached to your business and yourself.
Each of us has elaborate narratives we tell ourselves and others, often involving us moving from one success to another, handling problems with unwavering grace, and always looking like an intelligent entrepreneur.
Changing that story is incredibly unappealing – it comes with a lot of emotions and feelings of vulnerability.
We seek out ways of either avoiding a change to the narrative, or finding ways of spinning the changes we’ve gone through.
I delayed quitting my job at ANZ for months because I feared it was “a bad look”.
In reality, I now describe my time there in a single sentence, which I created, and nobody ever asks about the details.
I see entrepreneurs wanting to borrow money to prop up an impossible business, because they’ll do anything to preserve that story about success and resilience.
It is so much cheaper, easier and more liberating to instead embrace the need to change your narrative, and create one that involves you moving from an impossible business to one that can thrive in the next two years.
Everyone is going to write off the events of 2020 in the future, you won’t have to justify your decision to pause your business or terminate some relationships.
We get it.
Please don’t go into debt to prop up an outdated story. 

Could You Use A Mood Board?
A lot of founders are exploring new fields – creating websites, TV stations, books, online workshops, online sales channels, designing a new product or delivering a new service.
They have a big idea, but words aren’t seeming to do it justice.
They face scepticism from some people, confusion from others, and contractors aren’t sure what to start building.

My suggestion is to borrow a concept from the world of design: the mood board.
A mood board is a visual collection of images, words and layouts that all feature some common essence that you want your new project to have.
e.g. if it’s a landing page, collect eight examples of landing pages that you like.
If it’s an app, collect six examples of other apps with attributes you’d like to replicate.
If it’s a book, collect ten examples of books with similar appeal.
It might be the fonts, buttons, tone of voice, style of photo, colour scheme, level of detail, use of humour, luxurious feel, whatever you’re naturally drawn to.
This does two valuable things: it forces you to get clearer on exactly what you do and don’t like, and it gives your project partners something specific to use as a reference point.
I certainly appreciate this in my freelance work; when someone asks for an article, workshop or report, I ask them for some examples of what they’d like.
If they can send 2 or 3 examples with caveats, I can generally re-create the magic they’re looking for.
Remember, stealing from one source is plagiarism, stealing from many sources is research. 

Three Types Of Goals
I’ve been working with a number of founders on their goals – we build a list of them on the Zoom whiteboard.
Goals can be tough to define at first, but once you get going you can easily list 20-30 various goals for the next two years.
A helpful technique has been to build the long list, then apply three filters:
1. Which of these will bring me the most joy? (Choose 3-5)
2. Which of these are most valuable for my business? (Choose 3-5)
3. Which of these need to be done first? (Choose 3-5)

This process works because it acknowledges that different tasks have different types of value.
Some regenerate your passion, some strengthen your business, and some plant seeds that return big rewards in the future.
I use the little stamps on Zoom to designate each of these three categories, but use whatever note taking method you like.
What we’re looking for is the overlap of 2 or 3 of these categories.
When something is joyful and urgent, valuable and urgent or joyful and valuable, it has to become the first goal we break down and prioritise.
Too many goals stay as goals, and this process helps identify which of the 20-30 should receive a disproportionate amount of our energy and attention. 

Stuck Or Nervous
A lot of entrepreneurial progress comes from momentum – word of mouth referrals, encouraging tests, the energy that comes from seeing the results of your hard work.
But momentum is fragile, and it can come to an abrupt end.
Whenever you notice that your progress has stalled, it’s worth asking “Am I stuck on a technical problem, or am I nervous about the next step?”
Each of these can be solved, but through completely different methods.
A technical problem might require an outside expert, some research on google, a new tool, or a solution you can buy with money.
Nervousness might require a conversation with a trusted friend, a long walk or meditation, a large glass of something, or a conscious decision to make a tough call.
The large glass of something doesn’t help a technical problem, and research on google doesn’t help you embrace an uncomfortable moment.
Here’s the good news – naming which scenario you’re in makes the next step incredibly clear, and having a clear next step restarts your momentum.   

Putting Bounties On Dreaded Tasks
Generally speaking, I find to-do lists to be very helpful, and I make one for every day.
These lists help you track all the tasks you’ve set for the day, and ticking them off is satisfying.
The book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People identifies four categories of task:
Urgent and Important – things to do first, sometimes a crisis
Urgent and Not Important – interruptions to your day, can be delegated
Not Urgent and Important – tasks to plan for, long term payoffs
Not Urgent and Not Important – distractions to minimize or eliminate

Here’s where it gets interesting: on my daily to-do list, I prioritise the Urgent and Important, and I tick off the Not Urgent and Not Important to feel like I’m making progress.
I can have a “full and productive day” on paper, but miss the Not Urgent and Important tasks, when these are the ones I need to actively prioritise.

The trick that has worked for me is to set a bounty on the undesirable, non urgent but important tasks.
These are the ones that you know are good for you, but you can easily postpone.
Except you’ll keep postponing them because you dislike doing the task.
By setting small financial bounties, you incentivise yourself to get these tasks done.
These might be things like:

·      Publishing content

·      Redoing your LinkedIn profile

·      Actively starting new professional relationships

·      Gathering testimonials

·      Making a website

·      Cutting some costs

·      Raising your prices

Each of these feel like complex tasks, but on closer inspection they’re a series of straightforward steps and a moment of courage.
Setting a reward of $20 or $50 might help you prioritise the Not Urgent and Important tasks.
Yes it’s moving money from one pocket to the other, yes it’s stupid.
But if it’s stupid and it works, it isn’t that stupid.

When To Put On Your Thick Skin
Criticism is unpleasant, but that’s not always a bad thing.
The immediate sting can ruin a moment, and if you’re not careful that moment can go on to ruin your day.
Receiving criticism requires some discretion; some criticism is designed to help you, some is neutral, and some is malicious.
We want a selective thick skin, one that can process the constructive criticisms while deflecting the rudeness from people who want you to fail.
Here are three helpful questions when evaluating a piece of criticism:

1. Is this an objection or a complaint?
In the sales world, an objection is a roadblock that prevents a customer from proceeding, so we can either handle the objection or lose the sale.
A complaint is when a customer wishes the price was lower or that you had additional features, but will still proceed with the sale.
By identifying if a concern is a dealbreaker, as opposed to a customer processing a little bit of nervousness or disappointment, you can determine if their criticism should provoke a change, or just an explanation. 

2. Is this person my customer?
You won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but you don’t need to be either.
What you want to know is if the person giving you their feedback is the type of person who likes tea altogether.
Every brand is going to have critics, someone is bound to think you’re a ripoff, too plain, too weird, too niche or a sellout.
These people were never going to be your customer, and we want to prioritise the opinions of our potential customers over the rest of the market.

3. Is this a data point, or a broader trend?
“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”
It’s helpful to differentiate one data point from a broader trend.
If someone doesn’t like the coffee, that’s ok.
If twelve people all mention that they don’t like the coffee, it’s time to research if something has changed in the brew.
Trends take longer to emerge, so if you have consistent feedback on a particular point, you should consider it a warning sign from the market.

What I like about these three questions is that they provide context to the criticism.
Bad news from the right people is more valuable than praise from the wrong people.
As Rob Fitzpatrick says: You want the truth, not a gold star.

Get An Accountant
I once heard someone say “get a plunger before you need one”, and thought it was good advice.
It turns out that there are a number of things in life that fall into this category, and the conversation that seems to continually come up is “get an accountant before you need one”.
“Before you need one” is the key part of the sentence, every business needs one eventually, but we often leave it too late.
The thing that catches you out is sudden growth – a good marketing campaign or a large customer can suddenly double your revenue, and your administration will suffer.
Some people are put off by the extra expense, overlooking to fact that a good accountant will save you a lot of money as well.
If nothing else convinces you, ask yourself: have you ever heard of an entrepreneur who went back to doing their own books?

Setting Gates
With so much changing this year, committing large amounts of time and money to a business is a risky proposition.
That doesn’t mean we need to be overly conservative, or make bold Yes/No decisions.
A helpful way of thinking about these investment decisions is through “Gates”, which are conditional agreements to proceed.
e.g. once we pre-sell $20,000 worth of stock, we’ll commit to placing the first wholesale order.

Setting a gate is like designing a test – at what point will we feel confident to pour in more resources?
If we meet the criteria, great!
If we don’t, well that’s not great but at least we haven’t overcommitted.
These are useful when talking to prospective partners and investors; they set a trigger for the next meeting.
e.g. Come back to us once you’ve signed up 10,000 users.
All parties save face; they don’t have to tell you that they are sceptical, and you can let the results speak on your behalf.

I have lots of calls coming up in the next few weeks, so look out for the next post in this series shortly…