Are you meant to be an Entrepreneur? How do you know, if you have it in you?

Business leaders have been pushing themselves hard to rebuild their businesses post the COVID pandemic. Just when everything seems back on track, the pandemic seems to threaten the world again with its recent surge. Not only COVID, we seem to be in times where there is inflation, geopolitical unrest, rising interests, cyber security issues, rising employee expectations, labor shortage, etc. Remember the Billy Joel song, “We didn’t start the fire”. This seems to be the business world’s situation today.

Businesses are hoping for a stable environment. During these times of uncertainty, they are caught between the need to act and the requirement for caution. There are numerous decisions that a leader has to make every day like deciding about increasing and decreasing the units of production, hiring and firing, installing new machinery, discarding the old ones, diversifying or divesting the business, etc. All such tasks require good decision making which, in turn, determines the outcome. A leader’s ability to make decisions may be hampered by a number of factors. It is important to have handy answers to some important questions. This will help make important decisions in order to see that one doesn’t face any obstacles.

First and foremost is to know how reliable the procedure you have in place for decision-making. Leaders should experiment with strategies instead of relying on the manual procedure. Sometimes the best answers to an underlying question is not in the handbooks or manual guidelines. But it's available from your experiences as a leader. Organise your thoughts and re-assure that your experiences are worth making wise judgements. It’s always helpful if you can include people with different backgrounds and expertise and varied perspective to have a well-rounded input in your decision-making.

Make yourself not to rush into the unknown without thorough research. Great choices are possible when we take a step back, look 360 degrees and then decide to go ahead. No matter how important the situation is, however hard you run short of time, pause for a while instead of deciding hastily and regret later.

Ask yourself, ‘how efficient is your current growth?’. In times of uncertainties, on one hand, there is always the risk of losing money, on the other, there is an opportunity to deploy more capital in a venture when others fear. If you know your markets well, this is the best time to expand. The risks may be more but the returns are rewarding. Check your growth matrix to find how further you can go.

Probe further if you are differentiated enough. Successful businesses work on changing their value propositions, strategize providing high-quality services, cross-sell, work on customer experience and reduce response times. These are the levers to differentiate yourself and become efficient. Remember sales are not easy to make. Why would customers choose your service or product unless there is something different you offer than your competitor? So maintain focus and work on your goal.

Another important question to ask yourself is how will you manage your business if the leading indicators start showing red signals. In this case, it is always advisable to do scenario planning in advance and keep a specific action plan to shift your course. This will help to reduce all the unnecessary cash burn. In times like these, it is not strange to have a sudden drop in demand for some goods and a spike in others. Markets will not reward you if you continue investing in the less-in-demand. Shift your course to what is required at the moment and save resources to have control of your market in the future.

How do you turn the current market dynamic to your advantage? Perhaps this is the most crucial of all. Sometimes you need not require more investments or more production to have more sales. The mere fact that your product or service can help your customers navigate the existing circumstances is strong enough to help you through uncertain times. Your marketing and sales messaging can play the trick to give you the edge. Make sure to let your customers know how your product or service can help them in the current market situation. If they see the benefit, you get the reward.

Reviewing this checklist of questions and answers can help your business sail through uncertain times. The present economic climate is something that business leaders did not have necessarily created, but it is up to them to find out how to get going.