Raine & Horne Commercial

Specialist - Business Sales SA SimonWinter, Principal of Raine &Horne Business Sales, offers expert tips on how enterprises can navigate the pandemic. The quieter conditions some businesses are experiencing offers a rare chance to improve your business model. Owners who don’t prepare their SME to come out of COVID-19 stronger, are likely to regret it. I’ve taken the time to improve my own business systems, and as a result, I nowhave a better business. Work hard tomaintain your presence and profile in the market. This might involve submitting for industry awards, or ramping up your online content and social media strategies to remind your customers about your business andwhat you can do for them. Work the phones to stay connected and drumup newopportunities. Create an edge over your competition – don’t allow the current situation toweakenmorale. Keep exploring and pivoting into newopportunities. As a guide, in a softer business sales market, I have focusedmore resources into expanding the business valuations market. I have invested significant effort into developing our own small business benchmarking standards which has enabledme to developmany hundreds of business valuation formulas capable of fitting awide variety of businesses with specific risk characteristics. Manage operating costs. It might take a year to improve sales but you canmanipulate your cost base in an afternoon. As a guide, we were able to reduce those expenses that make our lives more comfortable but don’t improve our revenue stream. Reduce debt to gain control. Try not to carry short termdebt such as credit cards, and know exactlywhat you owe to various creditors and suppliers. I’mmore comfortable having less debt even if it means less money in the bank. Remember, plenty of businesses are thriving, it can just call for thinking in newways. I came across a cafe for instance, whose capacity had been cut from 100 to 25 diners at any one time. The owners changed their business model by opening later and closing earlier to save on payroll. They put a time limit of 40minutes on every table – and enforced it, and as a result they are nowmore profitable than they have ever been before and yet the changes were simple and obvious. For many business operators, fear of failure can be a constraint that prevents them fromexploring change. But the pandemic is forcing business owners to explore their ability to survive on a lower turnover. For others, COVID-19 is providing a chance for the owners to do the things they always saidwould, but never had the time to do. The real tragedy of this pandemic, in a commercial sense, is that some business owners will miss the opportunity to come out of the crisis with a stronger, healthier business. 08 - Simon Winter simon@rhbs.com.au