Is Your Small Business Recession Proof? Guest blog for Supporting Strategies

/ Rapid Business Plans/

Recession-Proof Business Planning

Business man on the growth pathA strong economy can mask underlying problems at a small business. When the next recession hits — and historically speaking, it's already overdue — will your business be healthy enough to not only survive, but possibly even thrive? It can be — but only if you have the right plan in place.

Be Ready When Opportunity Knocks
Every small-business owner says they want to grow their company. But how many are really prepared for the challenge?

Often, a vital step in growing your business is being able to raise cash quickly to capitalize on a sudden opportunity. Oddly enough, a recession can present some prime opportunities for growth, as some of your competitors might decide to sell off their assets at an attractive rate when faced with financial distress.

And the first step in raising cash is to have a lender-ready business plan.

SBA Loan Basics
Anytime you apply for an SBA loan, your package must include a business plan that meets the underwriter's requirements. Those minimum requirements include 12 to 36 months of:

  • Profit-and-loss projections
  • Balance sheet projections
  • Cash flow projections

And that's just the financial portion. You'll also want to include an executive summary with notes on market size and demographics.

A word of warning: When writing a business plan or applying for a loan, it’s not a good idea to describe your potential market as "everyone." That's just a sign that you haven't done your homework.

A dentist, for example, could reasonably argue that everyone in the world needs dental services. But the bank could just as reasonably counter that one dentist can't possibly treat everyone in the world. So it comes down to the dentist defining the geographic area their practice will encompass, explaining why that area isn't already saturated with dental-service providers and defining what sets the new practice apart.

A Good Time to Start
A recession can be a good time not only to expand an existing business, but also to start a business from scratch — provided several similar area businesses have failed and created an opening.

If you're starting a new business, your SBA loan application should include much of the same information as an existing business' plan. It should also include a detailed SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) and spell out the type of corporate structure you plan to use (LLC, S-corp, etc.). Finally, the business plan must clearly indicate how the prospective owner's career experience is relevant to the new venture.

Take Advantage of the Help That's Available
A number of resources are available to assist small-business owners with business plans. In my area, for example, the University of North Florida has a Small Business Development Center office that offers free coaching on how to start a business, including writing a business plan. That can be very helpful, and their thorough assistance over the course of many months can be vital for the novice entrepreneur.

If a recession hits, you won't have months to respond. That's why it's so important to prepare for one today.

Bethany Barnes, Director of Business Development at Rapid Business Plans, delivered a presentation on recession-proofing at the Business Fundamentals Bootcamp hosted by Pete Denholm, Managing Director of Supporting Strategies | Northeast Florida.

Factfulness: Gaining a Better (and More Hopeful) Perspective of Today's World

/ Rapid Business Plans/
Factfulness: Gaining a Better (and More Hopeful) Perspective of Today's World

In 2019, a step back to look at what’s happening is daunting - from dozens of mass shootings to economic uncertainty, volatile foreign powers, cyber-threats, questionable privacy, rapidly evolving technologies, cultural dissent, and more, a sense of being scared and overwhelmed seems reasonable. But are things as bad as they seem? Swedish statistician Hans Rosling and his son Ola Rosling in their 2018 book, Factfulness, take a step back from the fray to analyze trends and data to see whether our lives are getting worse or better, and show that in the grand scheme perhaps things are better and more hopeful than mass-media-fueled majority majority of everyday people might realize.

Factfulness is about understanding how our instincts program us to exaggerate situations and distort our perception of reality in ways that further exacerbate problems and how we react to them. In his book, Rosling outlines ten of these fundamental instincts and how to combat them to cultivate shift towards a perception based in fact that will ultimately alter the way we think, feel, and behave as a result.

Here’s a summary of some key insights and lessons for building a more “factful” perspective:

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Living Simplified - The Essence of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

/ Prior Business Consulting/
Living Simplified - The Essence of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

Success generates choices - both for people and societies. As Greg McKeown describes in his 2014 New York Times bestseller, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, any individual that becomes successful will have access to increasing choices as others come to recognize them as being capable of managing greater responsibility. Yet, even for the average person, technology and the success of modern American society as a whole has made a greater volume of choices accessible than ever before. Virtually limitless access to information, dozens of software-driven shortcuts to managing everyday tasks, high-speed travel, constant connectivity and more has left us with a dizzying array of options for how to invest our time and energies.

This article distills Essentialism into three core paradigm shifts proposed in his book that can help you understand the essence of what it means to be “an Essentialist,” and to live a more focused and meaningful life.

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Timeless Principles in a Social World: From How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

/ Prior Biz Consulting/
Timeless Principles in a Social World: From How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Some ideas stand the test of time because they tap into something profoundly true buried deeply in human nature and even nature itself. Nearly a century ago, Dale Carnegie published How to Win Friends and Influence People, well before the boom of self-development and communication literature flooded the modern marketplace. His simple but incisive insights for dealing with people have sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, defined an entire genre of content, and been considered by Time Magazine and many other sources (even the Library of Congress), to be one of the most influential books in American history, and even all-time. 


Much of Caregie’s work was birthed from his belief that it is possible to change other people’s behavior by changing one’s behavior towards them. In a social world of unprecedented connectedness fueled by communication technology and mass media, these principles are as important and potent as ever. Never before in human history has it been possible for nearly limitless instantaneous interactions with people across the world, so here is a reminder of some ideas for dealing with people that may just change their behavior, and your life for the better…

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Business Planning: Navigating the Early Stages of Business Growth

/ Prior Business Consulting/
Business Planning: Navigating the Early Stages of Business Growth

Small-businesses and start-ups range widely in their problems, patterns, and journey, and categorizing those experiences in a meaningful and useful way can be challenging. Yet, despite the uniqueness of their process, almost all entrepreneurs share a similar set of responsibilities. While timeframes, product complexity, organizational structures, and strategic goals vary, every entrepreneur faces at least three core responsibilities for their business: Survival, growth, and direction. These shared responsibilities occur continuously, simultaneously, and yet sequentially, since only if/once successfully managing one can the others be effectively addressed. Therefore, these ongoing activities might also might be considered as three cyclical stages of progress that all small-business owners face.

This article will discuss three core questions that any business owner should be able to answer clearly, concisely, and specifically at any stage if they want to navigate the difficult cycles of growth.

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Business Basics: Professional Business Plans & Why Every Small Business Needs One

/ Prior Business Consulting/
Business Basics: Professional Business Plans & Why Every Small Business Needs One

Who is your ideal/target audience? What are the best channels and strategies to market your product? How will you differentiate your product or service from your competitors? How do you plan to scale six months, twelve months, twenty-four months from now? If you cannot answer these questions clearly, succinctly, and effectively enough, it’s very likely that your business is suffering for it. These are questions that must be answered not just at the outset of building a business, but repeatedly and consistently as your organization and understanding evolves with markets, technology, and the times. An actionable, thorough, and detailed business plan provides the answer to these questions and many more - and is critical to providing clarity and direction for yourself and others who invest their time, energy, or dollars in your business.

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Financial Literacy for Small Business Owners

/ Prior Business Consulting /
Financial Literacy for Small Business Owners

Running a business takes a plethora of knowledge. When running a small business, it’s easy to get lost in daily operational woes. Novice small business owners will frequently embark on their new venture without having a full grasp of the financial aspects of the business—how will seasonality affect growth, how to avoid stagnation and how can market fluctuations impact revenue? In many instances, the small business owner may even make his or her personal financial security a secondary objective in their day-to-day activities. It’s absolutely critical for a small business owner to understand his or her grasp on financial literacy.

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