ZENYX: Hey SMHB, August is about Managing Risk...let's talk shop!

Hi SMHB,

Happy Wednesday. We are now half way through the first week of August, crazy!

This month, we're at that point where we are still reflecting on the first half of 2020 and well into the planning season for the second half. This week during the GrowthLab Jump on Monday, I reflected at some of our major topics since April. Not to go down memory lane, but rather to recall some of the journey that informs where we are today and, more importantly, where we need to be tomorrow.

April started with weekly updates on the PPP and stayed there.
In May, we got into planning and structured your time to focus on near-term cash planning, rest of year cash planning, and then building out tools to help understand longer-term impacts of COVID on your business.
In June we took a bit of a step back… we focused on the GrowthLab Four… those 4 areas that most business often have issues, namely:
- Understanding Your Cash Flow
- Understanding Where Your Making and Losing Money
- Marketing for Profit, Not Just Revenue
- Paying Employees for Performance to Achieve Company Goals
in July, we finished up the GrowthLab Four -- because they got interrupted by PPP Flex Act -- and we ended July with the action item of "Step Back & Think Ahead"...

I'm reviewing this because it's been a journey and the journey needs to continue.

So far on the journey, you should have in hand:

Your adjusted budget
Your cash needs for 2020
And, if you are really good, you have a sense of 2021 cash needs

We need to shift in our journey from a "Survive → Thrive" mindset. Yes, this is the thinking we introduced a few weeks ago and it's important. And to do so you need to think about and decide on what your "Thrive" mode will be…Adjust, Pivot, or Transition.

August is about assessing and understanding and managing risk. Yes, risk management is a vague term to many small businesses and seems like we are going to start talking about insurance and underwriting. But we are not. We are simply talking about identifying what could go wrong. Identify it. Name it. And then manage it.

In times like this, that opportunity / risk balance / equation is so critical. There is a LOT of risk out there right now. So… what are my action items to manage risk? One big way is start talking. Start talking to your partners and advisors...two key ones:

Tax risk… talk to your tax advisory professional. If you don't have one, we can help you find one
Cash risk… call your banker. Talk to them now because their focus in the next 3 months is going to be on what is called "special assets" and not on the ongoing relationship

If you want to talk shop around mitigating your risk, drop us a line!

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