Merry Christmas from the Team at Foundational Business

Well that didn’t go as planned!

Who could have predicted having the entire business world shutdown globally? No matter how well you developed your business plan for 2020, I am pretty sure worldwide pandemic wasn’t one of the What If’s you had on your Threats SWOT list

I bet it is now though!

At Foundational Business we started 2020 with big, exciting plans to develop and roll out more of our new programs and services and events for the Foundational Business Centre and our consulting practices.

We buckled down doing business planning work between customer work, which meant long days and weekends in January and February whilst it was a little less hectic.

But in March that suddenly turned in to us contacting our clients to see how we could help them navigate and manage the challenge and shock of global shutdown as their suppliers and customers dried up overnight, indefinitely.

We celebrated 10 years in business 2020, and whilst we’ve loved being a part of helping small businesses start, grow and flourish, 2020 we felt honoured and privileged like never before to be an essential service and support to so many small businesses.

We spent our time giving them hope, a listening ear, and providing practical and tactical advice to help them pivot and plan their way through the pandemic. As well as helping entrepreneurs start new businesses in the midst of COVID, which we are happy to see thriving despite the climate they began in.

Whilst we did that, we also pivoted and made sure we were secure as a business. We were able to keep our doors open throughout. The assistance from the NSW Government to us and thousands of other businesses has meant that we have been able to bounce back to normal, as quickly as possible, which we are very thankful for.

It also meant we could keep looking forward as a business and we have developed those new programs, behind the scenes of our daily work supporting other businesses. The good news is we will be releasing those new programs and services in early 2021, which include collaborations with other businesses we developed during the peak of the pandemic.

There are 6 things we did as business owners to survive 2020 I’d like to share with you:

We chose to Stand and Fight.

Early on the first day of the official shutdown I went to our empty office and walked through the space and told myself that no one and nothing was going to take what we’d built without a fight. And then we accepted the situation and made plans to work through it a day at a time.

We did not panic.

We turned off the news and searched for truth directly from the sources like government media releases on their own websites. This helped us to stay focused and not to feel overwhelmed by opinion’s rather than facts of what was and was not available or going to occur. It also helped us to stay COVID Safe as a workplace to keep our doors open.

We worked with our support team.

We engaged our virtual team of essential business services, such as our Bookkeeper, our Accountant, our Marketing service providers to keep moving us forward.

We reached out to help others.

Which is what we do every day, but it was even more important throughout that period both for them and for us – We were in it together.

We invested in relationships

We made time to be with (online and 1-2-1) our business community, encouraging and supporting each other. As a business owner only another business owner can truly understand the stress you have been under.

Looked after ourselves.

Everyone at some point 2020 has felt tired and burnt out. We are no different, we worked literally 12 hours a day 7 days a week, every day from January – August to both serve our clients and keep the business moving forward so that we lost no ground 2020. So, over the last few months we have been trying to be kind to ourselves and look after ourselves as business owners so we can keep positive and keep moving forward too.

No matter what your journey has been 2020, Christmas is a time to reflect on the richness of the experience you have had and the things you’ve learnt in the process, and wonderful people in your life.

We wish you and you families and staff a very Merry Christmas, and we look forward to serving you and your business in 2021.

Kerrie and the Team from Foundational Business

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope” – Martin Luther King