3 Things You Need to Consider when Recovering from a Setback to Your Business

If you have started a business in the last year or two – during the COVID-19 pandemic – you are familiar with a variety of interesting setbacks that businesses have had to learn how to adapt to and recover from. (A setback can be anything that may prohibit your business from moving forward or keep the clients from coming back).

The most dangerous aspect about any kind of setback to your business is that it can lead to negativity and a defeat of morale. Navigating through the setback while also staying positive can be difficult! Especially in the leadership and administrative roles, since they set the tone for the mob-mentality. Everyone else looks to those folks to know what to do and how to react, so its important for the health of the business to handle setbacks and objections with care. If you want them to change their outlook, its important to first change yours.

Here’s a helpful perspective on negativity and a quick way to master it in the middle of a setback. Let’s say that you have $100,000 in your bank account. Someone steals $800 from you. Would you rather spend the rest of your money, all $99,200, in finding the person who took the $800 and suing them to return it to you? Or would you let the lost money go? Now think of the dollars in terms of minutes in your life. Your limited moments are too precious to waste on negativity by letting it master you. Wasted energy is wasted life. Let the negative hone your focus on the positive and on finding a solution to resolve the conflict.

As you focus on positivity and on navigating through the setback or crisis, you will want to consider the 3 aspects below to help your business recover from the setback.

Stability, Safety, and Sanitary.

Stability

You want to make sure that you maintain stable:

Mindsets – with positivity and forward thinking as we talked about above
Systems & Procedures – Which will help you form a contingency plan and adapt to handle the objection. For help on forming contingency plans, see this blog post.
Staff – You need to provide the resources necessary to keep the people you need on your team & working productively for the business. If you are undergoing a turnover or other staffing issue, then delegate the tasks you need done to the “stable staff” (or begin the hiring process for one!). Do what you can yourself, then delegate to others with clear responsibilities.
Finances – If the business is struggling financially, work on assessing where the financial loss is coming from. Take a close look at the budget and see what can be adjusted to help save money, and seek financial guidance from a professional. You can also consider taking a loan out to help, investing into ancillary businesses, or creating a way for the business to make passive income.

Safety

General – Follow the OSHA and CDC guidelines for your business, along with any regulatory board guidelines for maintaining a safe workplace and workflow. Although these can be hard to adapt to – implement step by step what you need to improve your systems to make them as safe as possible for your business.
Disclosures – Seek legal counsel for any disclosures you may need to implement to protect your business, staff or clients. If your career has state forms that need to be signed, ensure your business is using up to date forms.
Building – Make sure the workplace is up to local building codes. Consider having a commercial inspection done by a licensed “home inspector” who specializes in commercial buildings, as well as having a fire marshal inspect for safety. You can never be too safe! Being too safe is far better than any alternative.

Sanitary

Provide a clean workplace for your staff and clientele. Especially if you work in food service or healthcare, this is absolutely non-negotiable! If you don’t have anyone else to clean the workspace, do it yourself in the meantime and follow the recommended OSHA guidelines for your line of work to make sure you have considered a thorough scope of cleanliness. This also includes the outside of your building – lawncare, pest control, and window cleaners provide services.
Take care of those who take care of you: Make sure your business has the right cleaning supplies for whoever will be cleaning, and a quick kit for cleaning up vomit or other messes. Make sure your staff have what they need in the bathrooms to stay sanitary. If you don’t take special attention to this department, your business will suffer.

When you focus on positivity and forward thinking to handle the objection, it makes the consideration of these 3 “S”s a piece of cake!