Pivot In Place

This is the final episode of my 3-part series on the foundations for a pivot - Customer, Culture & Cash. This show talks about cash, it's importance, and more importantly it's relationship with time.

When you are contemplating a pivot, you must understand not only the amount of cash that you have and what the pivot will require, but also the time relationship of burning and making cash. Having it in the bank is nice, but do you truly understand how much you have to work with? Have you promised that cash to your vendors or as wages to your employees? Do you expect to get more cash from your customers in the form of Accounts Receivable? And lets not forget tax liabilities!

The second installment of my 3-part series: Elements of a Pivot - Customer, Culture, & Cash. In this episode, I consider the impact that your company's culture has on the pivots that you consider, and include that a pivot can have an impact on your company's culture.

This is the shortest episode I've published, but in many ways the most impacting in terms of the decisions you make. Your company is made up of the people, and those people collectively create their culture. It is one of the hardest things to change in a company. The impact of that also needs to be considered in strategy changes and as every organizational change professional (which I am not) will tell you, culture must be considered whenever you are making changes to the structure and processes of the company.

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This is the first in a 3-part series. When a strategist is evaluating a pivot, there are three key factors to consider - Customer, Culture, and Cash. This episode touches on the Customer aspect of a pivot. Especially in light of the changes that will result from social distancing and the COVID-19 Pandemic, what will the changes in customer characterization mean for your business? Always being mindful that change presents opportunity, what lens should a business strategist be using when looking at the customer base. That defines the top of the P&L funnel. The source of all revenue.

I look at several types of customer shifts that represent either opportunity or risk. Put on your creative painter's had and determine what color to paint your customer's behavior, or if you should be be painting new customers into the picture.

When a group of people get together and talk about things, the conversation drifts. That can be a good thing...especially when trying to predict what life after a pandemic will be like. What changes will become common place? What will we learn about ourselves and better ways to do business.

Regardless of the change, it represents an opportunity - to - pivot.

Now that you have a map of what your survival looks like and what you can control to achieve that survival, this episode takes a look at what you should be doing with the time between now and "the other side".

Starting with staying in touch with employees, I talk about the Stockdale Paradox, how to resolve that, and how business owners and managers can significantly impact not only their ability to recover when the pandemic subsides, but how they can significantly contribute (or decimate) our economic recovery.

Knowing what you want is far different from knowing how to get it. This episode talks about the concept of control for a business owner / manager. The cause & effect relationships - typically referred to as the 'levers' that you pull to control your business, may not be the same as they were if they are there at all.

Also, what is required to end an economic crisis. Professor Dan Sichel from Wellesley College published a paper outlining the two things that are needed. How do we get there from here?

What does survival look like for your business? Are you short-term focused, long-term focused, or one of the lucky that can do some of both?

In this episode I take a look at the different ways to survive, and what that means to you, your employees, etc. There are more layers to this than meets the eye.

Oh - and toilet paper is still an extinct species!

Having managed and grown a business through the 2008 economic crisis, I'm sharing what I learned, creating ideas for you to explore, and creating actions for you to follow in evaluating the success of your business through the difficult economic time looming ahead.