9 Action Items for Stabilizing and Shaping Your Future

Written by Jim McCann, Spader Business Management

For some dealers, post-COVID reality means enduring losses while keeping the team together and readying for a market rebound. For many, though, the prospect of 30, 60, or even 90 days with significantly-reduced revenue isn’t just an inconvenience. If you fit into that category, here are Spader Business Management’s 9 Action Items for Stabilizing and Shaping Your Future.

• Take control of cash. Make sure it doesn’t get any worse. Stop all spending without approval by appropriate leadership. Put together a best-case/worst-case weekly, 30 and 60-day cash flow plan and review it often to make key adjustments.
• Assess the situation using facts. Seek reliable sources (internal and external) about what is going on and what is possible. Do you truly have a viable business, or do you need to minimize losses and get out? What are the odds of getting back to profitability? How long will it take? Are you, as the leader, ruly ready to do it?
• Watch your attitude (and the attitudes of others). Conduct a “check-up from the neck up” for you and your key people. Do your people know what you stand for, what the performance expectation is, and what the vision for the business is? Who is not “on the team?” Those who are draining energy must change now – or leave.
• Stop the losses. Figure out what you need to do to not lose any more money. At a minimum, get losses to manageable levels.
• Find the positives. Look for incremental business opportunities or “building blocks.”
• Make a recovery plan. How can you make this business work? Create profit/loss and cash flow plans for the range of key scenarios (most likely, worst-case, best-case, etc.)
• Raise more cash. Identify situations and decisions to generate cash. Borrow where you have the capacity and it makes sense. You never know when operating and floor lines may be frozen or cut. Remember ’08 and ’09?
• Strengthen credibility with customers, lenders, vendors, staff, etc. Share your plan. Maintain and build credibility. Proactively and openly communicate with all internal and external key stakeholders. Tune into your customer base like when you were just starting. Communicate and connect with them, offer specials, create value for them as your customer. Tune your website to promote your brand.
• Show a profit. Identify the path to profitability. Otherwise, plan to downsize or even exit the business.

For further information, please email info@spader.com or visit www.spader.com.

About Spader Business Management

Spader Business Management provides businesses with key proven principles to help organizations survive, stabilize, grow and maximize their potential. The company has developed policies and resources utilizing one on one coaching, on-site consulting, management training programs and performance enhancement tools to improve business efficiency.