Sailing the stormy waters between the tidal wave of work and the cliffs of despair

Despite what some would have you believe on the socials, running a small business is hard. Facts.

It’s akin to being a captain of a small ship sailing out across unknown ocean waters. Imagine the opening credits of the film: a high-level panning shot skimming across the waves towards the little boat’s bridge. And here you are, Captain Bootstrap at the controls. A salty sea dog if ever there was. You’ve got to look after the crew, there’s cargo to be delivered on time, and unknown, scary dangers lurk above and below the surface.

It is the captain’s responsibility to plot a route through the storm while managing all the responsibilities with so many, many things to think about. When it comes to running a business and keeping the revenue coming in, it’s a constant effort. Not enough customers? Stressful. Too many customers? Stressful and exhausting. The happy medium? Fleeting moments of peace. One of the questions I regularly ask founders is all about that forward look.

‘So, captain… how far away is the tidal wave and how far away are the cliffs? And which way are we sailing towards today?’

The cliff and the waves

OK, we could go further with rocks, kraken and giant squid… but for now it’s tidal waves and looming cliffs. Your motley crew members are the team sailing across the vast expanse of the ocean, and you are all vulnerable to external forces whipping up a storm. We’re either looking at the pipeline, and there’s a tidal wave of work potentially heading our way.

“If all of these deals come in, I don’t know how we can resource it.”

Or we’re sailing towards the cliffs of cashflow doom (certain death), where there’s not enough work coming in, and

“We’re going to have to look at cutting back, nothing is off the table.”

And there you are, in the middle of it all, bobbing up and down trying to hoist the mainsail. Yeah, it’s hard.

So what’s a captain gonna do? Well, there are actions we can take that can help us take a better course.

Retention > Acquisition:

Maintaining relationships with current customers is key. Assuming they are the right Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and paying you properly, keeping that base intact is move #1. It is always less effort and expense to retain existing than to acquire new.

Take time to plan:

You know, actual management time? High value thinking over endless doing. If the tidal wave is approaching, what additional resource is available? What efficiencies can be put in play with existing projects? It doesn’t have to be full-time PAYE hiring; having fractional and flexible resources pre-primed can be hugely beneficial if those POs all arrive on the same day.

Make space for BD: 

In the context of founder-led sales, this sounds obvious, but so often is the task that gets ‘bumped’ by whatever is on fire today. Why should BD fit around the gaps in your diary? BD should be a non-negotiable in the diary. There’s a happy medium to be struck here between ‘little and often’ and not turning your calendar into Swiss cheese with all the inefficiencies of context switching that can come with it. Two or three deep work blocks for BD a week is a baseline to aim for.

Follow up, follow up, and then follow up some more: 

With everything going on, it can be easy to give up on a lead after one or two attempts. Don’t do this. For some of our best clients, we spoke with them and followed up several times before we got a project going. Have you had a couple of conversations, and things have gone quiet? Pick up the phone, I dare you!

Generate a meaningful forecast: 

It doesn’t need to be super fancy, it doesn’t need to be to-the-penny accurate. A simple sheet of revenue vs costs is better than nothing. But really, with all the tools and feeds out there, having access to a decent set of financial KPIs is not that hard these days. Take a moment to consider what to track and keep it simple.  Too much on the dashboard, and it is just noise. As our own service business has grown, we have developed a small number of forward-looking (leading) KPIs and backwards-looking (lagging) KPIs, with team member utilisation as an increasing focus. While we price based on value, we do record our time on projects internally.

Got an accountant? Talk to them, there’s knowledge to tap into here. It does take a little bit of thinking and effort to put this in place, but the moment of clarity is everything. I sleep better.

Be bold with your marketing: 

It can be very tempting to cut back. Marketing comes under pressure from the wave,

“We’ve got so much work we don’t need to market.”

It also, as you’d expect, can be threatened by the cliff,

“We need to cut back on spending, marketing gets the chop first.”

Without marketing, where is the next set of clients coming from? Either after the boom time of now or to avoid the bust of next month? Yes yes, I know what you are thinking, ‘Stu, you run a marketing agency, of course you are going to say this…’

We’ve lived this here at team MtB. Our own Re-Tech events series is a loss-making adventure on our P&L. At times, the bar bill has hurt, making it squeaky bum time for that month’s payroll. Without those events, our business would not exist. I look back at the pictures of those early events, and I see long-term MtB clients today. While every business is different, if your marketing spend is less than 5% or even less than 10% of revenue, it’s not getting the love it should.

Don’t panic: 

The team smells it, customers smell it! As a business, our own culture is one of radical candour. The commercials have their agenda item in our weekly stand-up, and each quarter we meet to go through our financials alongside our team OKRs. But with that candour, there is also a need to do a bit of “keep calm and carry on”. Acknowledge which way the ship is sailing and take action. All hands on deck.

Captain Lee wouldn’t flinch in the face of a storm (or a badly parked super yacht in his berth). A little bit of the good captain goes a long way here (and if you get that analogy, I see you).

If you feel like you are in the boat and the storm is raging around you.

Know this: you are not alone.