250+ days of lockdown for businesses across Melbourne. We are beyond managing this with ‘the right mindset’. 

Business owners are frustrated at the lack of continued government support (aka lack of JobKeeper). Growing obstacles from ever increasing lockdown restrictions mean we are continually looking for new ways to survive and navigate staying afloat.Disaster relief payments are available but hardly a long term solution to survival. 

Uncertainty. Constant strategic planning to match little stability. Resilience and strength to continually persist and evolve. These are skills many people are learning for the first time during a pandemic. Previously un-lived threats are now a daily reality.  

First and foremost, finding ways to offer leadership and support to scaffold employees in the  wake of dwindling mental health from increased psychological distress is top of mind for many small business owners. It’s about fixing your own oxygen mask first and then, with any reserves, fixing the oxygen masks of others outside of your organisation where you can.   

Polarising views run rampant about how the situation should best be managed and there has to be a smarter way. So what is in your control as a business owner? What can you change? What can you do? What will help you and your team? 

Here are some ways to support your business, your team and yourself...

1. Planning fosters confidence. Plan around areas of certainty in your business (and your life). What is within your control? Ground yourself around that stability.
2. Share helpful information. Other small businesses are suffering, so recommend other businesses you trust to your customer base. Sharing really is caring.
3. Limit daily news consumption. Only gather from authoritative sources. Avoid sharing information collected by armchair experts and avoid sharing such information on the team message boards. 
4. Foster time for exercise and movement. Lead by example, if your team sees you’re taking the time to have a movement break, they’re more likely to follow suit.
5. Be less available. Alter your signoff to call out that you don't expect an answer within 24 hrs / that night or over a weekend.
6. Do a personal SWOT analysis. Name the fear or threat and write it down. Analyse it objectively. Everything seems bigger in your head. Written down you can better assess the threat and consider tactics to neutralise it.
7. Check-in with the humans behind other businesses. It’s easy to forget there are real-life faces behind every company. Have you reached out to other business owners in a similar situation?
8. Collaborate with like-minded businesses. Are there partnership opportunities with other businesses in your network where you could skill swap, share expertise or personnel to reduce costs, mentor / mentee or sound board solutions?
9. Be more conscious about your supply chain. Are there areas that could benefit from being hived off to a smaller business, rather than a larger one? Or do you have business areas ripe for outsourcing where vendors haven't yet been selected to fulfil these tasks? Better yet, could you share or pool resources with another business in a way that is mutually beneficial and will save both businesses money?

This storm will end, eventually. 

Keep holding on, holding strong. We will get out of this by supporting one another. We can do this better if we do it together.