BiZHUB MONDAY – 28th April Edition

Host: Stuart Morrison
Topic: Resilience!

Following on from @signal-emma talk at Friday’s Bordon BiZHUB, this morning’s BiZHUB Monday zoom session served up a sparkling assortment of witty repartee, and lively bizz opinions on resilience, one of our topics for May.

Here’s some of the questions and insights we had as a group, fascinating and useful thoughts when we are facing an uncertain economic outlook.

RESILIENCE PLANNING FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

Process and planning – this helps prevent both quality and service issues but also allows the business to continue should a key team member be unavailable. @lisa_collyer shared some useful insights around this for her role in Bordon Soapbox 2025.

Documentation and notes – knowledge and experience is a key reason people seek out a specialist (as many small businesses are). However curating and documenting that knowledge is criucial to ensure there’s no breakdown in comms and assist the team when the key individual(s) is/are not available. @geoffb gave his thoughts and insights from many years in tax planning.

Using AI to build a process/manual/documents – A.I. can help design a system or offer insights into “best practice” in many indistries. Useful to keep you compliant but also helps when interfacing with out similar businesses or suppliers. @matthewlaakvand shared some of his challenges growing his business, and ensuring he has the right plan in place.

Building a good resilient mindset and celebrate the wins – staying upbeat is not mindlessly smiling and ignoring the facts, it’s about accepting that sometimes 80% of a win, is still a really good outcome. @ivan offered some thoughts around stayiung upbeat.

Have a good work/life balance and enjoy doing something hard – having an interest away from and separate to your business can help you return refreshed. Choosing something physically challenging can get you “out of your head” (in a good way!) @ally shared her passion for cold water swimming (link to something different for business networking below)

Flexibility and ability to have a flexible mindset – understanding that Plan A might not work, and you may need all the way through to Plan Z before you get the right results!

GENERAL DISCUSSION
We then had a chat about the current global economic situation and where we are as small business owners. @arbrook (a wealth advisor & financial planning consultant) mentioned the over-valuation of tech stocks, over weighting of US businesses within UK pensions and just staying steady and not making any knee-jerk responses to current global trends. Rebalancing of certain tech stocks may be on the way, but to hold out and ride through the rough patch and invest a little every month

There was also agreement on small business (and the nation in general) is “holding our breath” waiting for the next major downturn.

Acknoweldging and managing risk – was the no. 1 takeaway; understanding your risks, both lifestyle and within your business is key for businesses growth. What are you risking personally should your growth plan not work? Some interesting questions arose before we got a chance to dive in, so perhaps we can explore them in the comments below?

How to stay motivated in tough times?

How to give good guidance and remain motivated in the face of challenging times?

How do you stay motivated when the client won’t listen to good advice?

We then rounded out with @ally sharing her Smart Wave Swim Networking – a dip in the ocean followed by a sauna! A really different idea for a business networking event. Book below.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/smart-wave-swim-networking-tickets-1318576771619?aff=oddtdtcreator

How Website Design Goes Straight To Hell – a humouros look at client briefing, which may resonate not only with the web devs in the group, but the creatives as a whole or anyone who has ever had to design something to a “brief”.

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

Have an awesome week!