Don’t be a possum

When times are tough and you’re staring down the barrel, Graeme Owen from The Successful Builder says the worst thing you can be is a possum

When I was growing up, it was not unusual to run over a possum when driving on a country road at night. It would stop, fixed in the headlights, get hit by the car and die on the spot. Breakfast for the hawks! 

Its problem wasn’t that it crossed the road, nor that a car was coming. Its problem was that it froze, rigid with fright! 

Inquest: inaction killed the possum (all it needed to do was take a couple of leaps). 

Inaction can have dire consequences, but actions change things. 

Recently, I have spoken to several builders who have faced dramatic setbacks: significant jobs cancelled; cost blowouts; staff resignation and supplier accounts put on hold. Challenges so big that they seemed almost insurmountable. Initially it is paralysing – frightening even!

But it need not be fatal (for your business). 

If you find yourself in a situation where your business is severely threatened, it’s tempting to just freeze. It can feel like the end of everything. 

But it need not be. You are a builder, and builders are people of action. So, it is possible that applying my Massive Action Strategy (MAS) may be right for you. 

Here are the steps I have worked on with several business owners facing overwhelming threats. 

1. Identify the threats

The first step is to make a list of all the challenges you are facing. Do it dispassionately and as accurately as possible, but don’t spend too much time worrying about it. If possible, list them in order of priority with the biggest threat at the top. 

2. Focus on the few

Once you have listed each challenge your company is facing, settle on the top two or three. Estimate the cost that each one of these is likely to have on your company over the next year and combine them. This combined figure is likely to be the worst possible outcome. 

After that, take a few moments to tantrum! Then get on with it. 

3. Hard stuff

Now to get to the really hard part! Take the first challenge and decide if it can be fixed. If not, move to the second, and the third. 

Make notes of any actions you could take to fix (or partly fix) the things that can be fixed. This is challenging work and you may benefit from getting someone outside your company to help you, as they may be able to see things you can’t. 

If the main challenges are outside your control, then you need to start thinking creatively about actions you can take to pivot your company: a change of market perhaps; a change of geography; a change of products or services. 

If you have not experienced a downturn before, this may just seem too hard. But remember, there was a time when you first saw an opportunity and started your company. There are always opportunities available to those who look. Again, it may help to get some help from someone else here. 

But don’t sit around. Come up with possibilities! 

Note: If you think that you may need to wind up your company, then talk to your legal and accounting advisors immediately. It is better to do so early than to grow a bad debt. 

4. Plan

Once you have some possibilities, choose just one and build a plan to make it happen. Note the outcome you want and list three to five steps that you would need to take. 

Do this for a maximum of three. 

5. Massive action

This is the key! Once you have your plan together, commit to putting it into action with Massive Action. Do this for no longer than a week at a time and review. Have I made progress? Is it still a good plan? If not, quit it and move onto the next plan. Almost everything else can wait a week. Take a short break and then do another few days of Massive Action. Do it as if your life depends on it. If it starts to work, do more of it. Your goal is to find what works for you and do it. 

6. Review quickly

The purpose of the Massive Action Strategy is to get results quickly so you can determine if it was a good plan or not. Not every plan will work out. But better to learn that quickly.

Examples

A builder I worked with determined that his biggest challenge was the continual late payment from his biggest repeat commercial customer, putting undue stress on him and on the company’s finances. So, he quit that company and pivoted to residential. His Massive Action strategy was his team spending half a day delivering 3,000 pamphlets in his local area. Within 48 hours he had four jobs and enough work for 2-3 weeks –  which kept his crew together while he decided the next steps. 

Another builder built a Massive Action 90 Day Plan, comprising three key goals and 10 action steps. At time of writing, he had achieved two of these and a third was well under way.  

Takeaway?

Don’t be a possum! 

 

Graeme Owen is a builders’ business coach at thesuccessfulbuilder.com. Since 2006, he has helped builders throughout New Zealand get off the tools, make decent money, and get more time in their lives. Grab a copy of his free book: The 15 Minute Sales Call Guaranteed To Increase Your Conversion Rate or join Trademates and connect with builders who are scaling too.