You are my Heroes

Any person who claims ‘You can pivot your business in 5 easy steps’, or advocates ‘Business survival in the COVID world in 7 Simple Steps’ and ‘3 golden rules for solving revenue loss during lockdown’ is a delusional muppet. I’m a bigger muppet for reading the articles. That’s an hour of my life I will never get back! I promise to no longer read quick fix ‘list’ articles.

Having reached the conclusion there are no easy solutions, I am back to updating cashflow forecasts and similar thrilling pastimes that have taken on so much significance recently. Apologies to any accounting type people who genuinely find it thrilling. For personal development I’m working on my daily mantras ‘I love accounting’ and ‘I love *&%@%* muppets’. I’m not sure I’ve got the hang of positive mantras quite yet. I also pledge to stop thinking seriously unkind thoughts which includes many swear words my Mum would never use, about things I hear and read voicing generalised negative opinions about employers.  I was going to give you a list of the top five, but then remembered my ‘list’ aversion and I don’t want to be a contributor to that.

In lieu of that, we have added to the Q&As answering some of the ways employees are pushing back when presented with a proposal to reduce hours, pay or redundancy. Click here to read them.

Rather than focus on the negatives I wanted to share some examples of the wonderful things I have seen first hand in our business communities and celebrate my heroes with you.

I want to say thank you to the businesses who paid their invoices early to give others some desperately needed cashflow. A shout out to Pete Walters of Marine & Outdoors in Blenheim who did this. Thank you to everyone who has paid any invoices. I know a number of owners who are doing this out of their own pockets. A big thumbs up Paul Brockie of Absolute Energy for donating a $500 rebate he received to ‘Kai with Love’ in the hope of inspiring others to do the same. To all those businesses who have kept paying their staff without revenue or work, you are appreciated. A heartfelt thanks if you have brought a café voucher in advance. That means the café was able to pay the local butcher, who in turn was able to pay the farmer, who will now be able to get a coffee from their favourite café as it will be still there out the other side of this. My greatest admiration however is reserved for those business owners struggling the most and making heart breaking decisions while being physically distanced from your support networks, supporting your own families, being teachers in your home, learning to be COVID-19 health and safety experts for your team and the public, and making decisions which benefit the entire country but are disastrous for you personally – thank you for being inspirational and my heroes through this.