Reset, Rebuild, Reignite

Pavlo Phitidis

Description

‘This crisis has been an amazing catalyst for change for our business. Putting together our battle plan has allowed us not to be paralysed by the unknown and we have literally reset our entire business model.’

‘The only way out of this crisis is to find the new normal. The tools, case studies and personal insights provided are so valuable to help keep your head straight and be reminded of the steps needed to reach your destination.’

Crises mean change. And for any business owner, change means opportunity.

There is nothing new about a crisis stalling or wiping out a business. The COVID-19 pandemic that has hit businesses globally does not feel any more or less devastating to the business owner than if their business was affected by the sudden loss of a dominant client, a trade war, burst water pipes halting operations, intransient employees or their product no longer being relevant to the market.

In Reset, Rebuild, Reignite, the second book from Pavlo Phitidis, his starting point is not how to avoid crises because some are inevitable. Instead, he shows how you can use any crisis to reset your business to get relevant, rebuild it to scale, and reignite it to accelerate growth by capitalising on the change and opportunities that any crisis brings with it.

Stories of business owners who have successfully turned crisis to their advantage are underpinned by Pavlo’s practical, action-oriented insights, tactics and strategies that will have you reading with a highlighter in hand, and will equip you to tackle any crisis that affects your business.

Sujets

• Strategic Planning
• Business Development
• Entrepreneurship
• Service innovation
• Competition (economics)
• Strategic management
• Development

Informations

• Publié par: Pan Macmillan South Africa
• Date de parution: 01 août 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781770107892
• Langue: English

Extrait

Reset, Rebuild, Reignite
Build Your Business to Thrive in a Crisis
Pavlo Phitidis
pavlophitidis
pavlobiz
pavlophitidis
MACMILLAN

Note from the author
I have recreated events and conversations from my memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity in some instances, I have changed the names of individuals, as well as some identifying characteristics and details.
First published in 2020
by Pan Macmillan South Africa
Private Bag X19
Northlands
Johannesburg
2116
www.panmacmillan.co.za
ISBN 978-1-77010-788-5
eISBN 978-1-77010-789-2
© Pavlo Phitidis 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owners and the publisher of this edition of the book.
Editing by Sally Hines
Proofreading by Catherine Munro
Design and typesetting by Triple M Design
Cover design by publicide

To the unassuming warriors, private business owners, who eat adversity for breakfast, I remain in service and admiration.
To Carien, my co-founder and friend, your obsession with quality gives me the confidence to do what I do.
To the Aurik team, for your unhesitating response to the ongoing change wrought through the relentless innovation we bake into the business daily, thank you.

Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 About Crises
Chapter 2 Get Your Mindset Right
Chapter 3 Take a View
Chapter 4 Understand Your Purpose
Chapter 5 Understand Your Risk and Opportunity
Chapter 6 Prepare to Negotiate
Chapter 7 Enable Your Business
Chapter 8 Build a Battle Plan
Conclusion


Preface
Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve … didn’t. Don’t let it be too little, too late. Crises are part of life for any business owner. Change is inevitable in the mere act of doing business and existing in a dynamic world. Often experienced as a crisis, change is loaded with opportunity. In the moment of a crisis, we face two options. Step forward into growth and lead the inevitable change it brings or step back into safety and have its impact imposed on you.
Crises either erupt or percolate, triggered by many events. Think about a global health pandemic that redefines how your business is able to operate. Think about socio-political events such as Brexit causing the fastest-growing Italian food distributor to kill all his growth plans. Or think of trade wars seeing a successful manufacturer of baby car seats flip-flop from importing parts to localising its manufacturing, only to find itself unable to compete with importers of final products.
Crises can consist of fires in an Australian caravan-manufact uring plant leading to cancelled orders in an already pressured market or a light-aircraft crash killing the entire leadership-succession team in a $300-million tiling business.
It can be personal, such as the passing of an elderly mother leading to her 54-year-old son’s depression almost collapsing his $6.8-million aircraft cabin-building business. It can be completely unconscious, such as the septuagenarian partners in one of the biggest specialised anode-manufacturing plants fading into the distance because … they forgot to grow.
Crises are either imposed on you or created by you. Opportunity lies hidden in the change that follows. This can only be unlocked by an attitude that is anchored in a future vision of your business and manifested through action.
Crises wake you up to tell you who you are, or who you can be. The opportunity brought in every crisis, large or small, is forgone by an inability to transcend the initial shock. Losing control of your mindset, willing the crisis away and being hamstrung by yesterday’s logic prevents transforming your business and yourself into tomorrow’s success.
A crisis requires action. It may be to do nothing and it may be to make significant changes. Doing nothing is an investment in your business only if it is a deliberate action. The action you need to take when a crisis hits must do more than help your business survive. It must see you thrive. The reason is simple. Crises bring change that either creaks or smashes open the status quo of how your customers, suppliers or team are contained. It is the fastest and shortest route to instituting changes in your own business or completely changing the rules of the game for your competitors.
This can only happen if you step up, step ahead and lead the engagement with your customers responsively. Missing such an opportunity will come at the cost of either being the victim of a competitor who beat you to that insight and action or getting to the other side of the crisis with the same ‘everything’ you had entering it.
Emerging successful from a crisis changes the stuff you are made of. You will be stronger, smarter and wiser. Or, you can emerge broken and done. It all begins with adopting the right mindset – something we have 100% control over. Right mind then needs right action and right action is led by clarity on why you do what you do as a business owner. In my view, that future should only ever be one thing – to build your business into an Asset of Value. (I discussed how to do this in detail in my first book, Sweat, Scale, $ell: Build Your Business into an Asset of Value ). An Asset of Value business is a customer-centric enterprise that enjoys consistent revenue. It is built on systems that operate smoothly without you, the business owner, being constantly required to get involved, and it is supported by a reliable and purposeful team. It is your greatest wealth-generating asset, a business that is ultimately saleable.
Many of us spend our lives head down in the trenches of building our everyday businesses. We know the nooks, crannies and workings of how to build the product or service that we offer customers. We hold it all together in the hope that each year will bring better harvests, be it through new customers, talented employees or favourable economic conditions.
A crisis spins that world out of your everyday orbit. It presents an instance of newness, often with daunting consequences. That is, until you learn to see it differently and, in that, take actions that metamorphose your business into a far better, bigger and more beautiful outcome.
This book is based on people, ideas and action. You will put the book down knowing how to:
❏ Develop and get into the right mindset to deal with a crisis and come out winning.
❏ Use a method to quickly evaluate the risks and opportunities that the crisis brings.
❏ Create a negotiating framework and strategy to work with your team, customers and suppliers.
❏ Accelerate a digitisation strategy across your business to get it and your team working.
❏ Reset your products/services for a new environment.
❏ Stand out in a competitive, noisy and overcrowded market.
❏ Focus and empower your teams to perform.
❏ Rebuild predictable marketing, sales and operational systems.
❏ Spend more time leading and less time doing.
❏ Reignite your growth ahead of your competition.
Nothing in this book requires the remarkable. I have done it. I have seen many others do it. And you can do it. During a crisis, there are moments when things will seem and feel impossible. Start with what is necessary, and then what is possible. Before you know it, you will be doing what seemed impossible a week, month or year ago.
Thank you for investing the time to read this book. The practical nature of the ideas, actions and attitudes expressed herein will deliver value if brought to life through your head, hands and heart. Forever curious, forever learning, forever driven to ensure that business owners succeed in their quest; let me know how it goes.
Find me on LinkedIn, at www.aurik.com or @pavlobiz on Twitter.


Acknowledgements
In the midst of the COVID-19 lockdown and on the front lines of battle with business owners we work with at Aurik, I got a call from my publisher, Terry Morris. Dealing with clients across four economies and three time zones had me busy. Terry noticed.
‘You need to write a book,’ she said. ‘It must be about how to thrive in a crisis. Can you do it?’ If you meet Terry, you will see she has charm that rests on a steely will. There was only one answer. In a flash, she brought her team to bear. Led by Andrea Nattrass, I was introduced to Sally Hines.
Here I was, running a 16-hour day, corralled, bullied, charmed, and coerced into writing what I had seen and what I was seeing being done by business owners in response to the global lockdown. Sally demanded the content, Andrea set the targets, Catherine Munro fastidiously proofed the copy and, somehow, I submitted and succumbed to their collective will. And for that I am enormously grateful. Thank you to you all.


Introduction
‘A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.’
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
The mental scar tissue and emotional muscle memory of a relentless 5 am-to-10 pm, six-day week for 60 months paid off big time. At a young age, with some increasing life experience and fragments of a privileged education, I had unwittingly acquired $420k of undisclosed bank debt for the bargain price of a dollar. I will never forget that day. I walked into my first newly acquired business, smiling. I was chuffed that my negotiation had paid off. I clearly remember when the change took place. It was in the 11th minute of my being introduced by the three sellers to the employees. What I saw in their faces as they met their new employer, 25 to 35 years their junior, was a combination of pity, desperation and dread.
The sellers claimed they had ha