Over the last few weeks, everyone from clients and candidates to family members and friends has shown a greater level of interest than normal in how our new business is going.

Although Luminary as a business kicked off last year, it wasn’t until COVID struck that we had completed market testing and were ready to go with the team. Terrible timing!

ACCEPTING NEW REALITIES

In moving ahead with plans. We had to accept things are now very different; like growing a business in a market with slow or non-existent growth, greater business disruption to come, and the increasing likelihood of further lockdowns.

We are either bold (one of our values) or foolhardy……

Assuming the former, we remain positive about the future and we are excited about the next phase in our business evolution.

I have also found myself reflecting on what we really learned during the lockdown. In those long days working from the kitchen table, it became apparent to me, as I am sure it did for many other business owners as well, that there had to be a better way to how we’d been doing it before.

They say in every crisis there is an opportunity. So as owners, we were determined to view the shutdown period as a useful time to not only prepare our business for the new financial year, but also for the next few years of our business.

So this is what we are focusing on now as we move on to the next part of our journey.

WHAT IS OUR PURPOSE IN A COVID REALITY?

We used the time to think about what we stand for. What are our core values and how they support our ‘new’ vision.

In accepting that the world is now a different place to the one we were planning for in March, we agreed that we need to consider our leadership and culture.

Like many others, our work will now be defined by increased flexibility, remote working, virtual offices, and even greater adaption of technology than we had used before. We realise that our identity as a business – our principles, practices, belief, and philosophy needed to change with our new reality.

We believed that we would benefit from an ‘outside-in’ view, so we took on external advisors to assist. We canvased our stakeholders (widely), engaged with our customers, and then, only when we knew we were ready, we bought in an external consultant to help (and challenge us) to redefine our purpose.

WHAT DOES OUR BUSINESS MODEL LOOK LIKE NOW?

Simultaneously, we decided now was the time to take a good long hard look at our business model.

What does sustainable growth look like for us, even in a market which will be disrupted, remain challenged, and likely contract in the near term? How do we deliver greater value? Where should we focus?

With so many ‘recruitment’ companies already out there, many of them offering the same thing, with no real discernible point of difference, we again turned to our customers and engaged expert advice to guide us through our options.

With traditional sources of revenue challenged, this was not an easy decision, but in our case, we believe this investment will in our future create efficiencies and opportunities in the many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

We have looked at every stage of our customer journey to consider what we can do differently, where does it make sense to outsource, when can we access other skills, what does co-creation look like, where can we collaborate, and ultimately what does this look like in value and commercial terms.

HOW COULD WE SIMPLIFY OUR NEW BUSINESS?

The lockdown was also a good time for us to get back to basics. In the same way that I cleaned out my wardrobe, we revaluated what we really needed in the business moving forward. Simplifying, or right-sizing for lack of a better word.

Now is a great time to question everything. Do you have too many internal processes? Or not enough? Are we providing services we aren’t going to be paid for and should be? What does this mean for our current future staff hires moving forward? This is a process we applied to every part of our business and you can as well.

Ask any retailer, tourism operator, or restaurateurs this same questions and see what they say? As an example, my local coffee shop now sells eggs, homemade sourdough, chili jam alongside great coffee, and a much simpler menu. What was survival has become simplification – they tell me the “deconstructed breakfast” with the pared-back offering is here to stay.

So, as unfortunate as it is, recessions bring a unique focus on what is truly important to your customers, your business, and ultimately to you as well.

WHAT ROLE DOES TECHNOLOGY PLAY FOR US?

Even before COVID-19, it was clear that small businesses like ours needed to embrace technology.

Having worked for large global organsiations over the years, with an abundance of resources and management expertise, they can, and often do, get these investments spectacularly wrong.

In the same way as we see current market conditions as a levelling of playing field, we see this as a great opportunity for us to take a giant leap forward vs well established and infinitely better resourced competitors.

As Microsoft chief executive officer Satya Nadella stated, the business world has seen “two years of digital transformation in two months,” so we too decided to consider what new opportunities this might present for us.

We have consider what CRM we need, our task management and workflow (again for simplicity), replaced our prior use of spreadsheets of to-do lists with Monday.com, fully embraced DocuSign to speed up contracts and invoicing, and ensured that everything we use is in the cloud, fully mobile, and of course integrates across platforms. We have also experimented with new plug-ins, and found some new, subscription tools that allow us to innovate with speed without much in the way of upfront investment. It’s also been fun learning new skills along the way.

In the same way that our leap to video conferencing has removed the need to meet in person or to travel, we are reaching out to customers with a mix of social media, video, and direct communications. We intend to use technology as an enabler to deepen human relationships and contact – not replace them.

AND FOR OUR FUTURE?

I have to thank my barber, Karl for this one. With his business drying up as his CBD customers disappeared to suburban salons or home haircuts, his previous advantage - proximity - hand become a millstone around his neck. Without the required foot traffic, his commercial tenancy arrangement was now likely to set him back years on his retirement planning. At the very best he saw another two years added to his working career. This is not something we were willing to accept.

So in planning for the future, we’ve also been working on a range of scenarios, including what an exit might look like one day into our future.

I accept this is of more relevance for older and more established business owners, but with the world-changing so quickly, we had to ask will our business still be what it is five years from now? How can we really know? Do we have the skills, experience, and — most importantly — the energy required to transition to the new world?

For us, we knew that we were ready to take on the challenge and put in the hard yards required, but it had to have an end goal.

For others, if your business is still performing well despite COVID-19, now could be as good a time as any to realise the many years of hard work you have put in and move to the next stage of your life.

There is little doubt that the months ahead will be challenging for all of us. However, in remaining optimistic about the future, as uncertain as it is, we’ve been giving a great deal of thought to our foundations and how we can come through this experience better prepared for the future.

I guess only time will tell if we have used this time wisely…..