Getting Through a Recession

We could open this article with a paragraph about how terrible the economic outlook over the next few months might look, but that won’t help anyone. Here’s everything you need to know about getting through a recession from one of Birmingham’s best-known entrepreneurs, Mark Panayides. 

Inspire everyone around you

Recessions are incredibly stressful times. Each new day brings more negative headlines and it can be so easy to feel down all the time. By making everyone around you happy, you can be the light that brightens up their day and motivates them to believe in themselves and focus on their work, despite everything that’s going on in the world. 

For Mark, ‘motivating everyone around you is key to getting through tough times’. Inspiring your teams to create great products and services that your clients love, will persuade clients to stick with you through the good and bad economic times. If they can always rely on the same immensely high quality of service, then they will have confidence in your business even if global markets don’t have confidence in the UK economy. 

Great relationships will get you through the toughest times

If you don’t invest time in supporting other businesses when the economy is booming, then how can you expect people to support you during a downturn? Sometimes this support doesn’t need to be commercial. Just being there for people, answering the phone when they need a chat and other random acts of kindness will go further to building relationships than phoning people about work ever could. 

Mark places ‘caring, having time for everyone and being approachable’ at the heart of all his professional relationships. These attributes have allowed him to build a network of mutual support that has lasted for decades. 

If you only want to build relationships to get business, then you won’t build the long-term relationships that play such a crucial role in helping entrepreneurs to get through crises. Recessions are a great time to put competitive differences aside and collaborate with other trusted professionals to create even better products and services. 

Always deliver

Reliability is always important. In downturns, great reputations carry even more value because if people are going to pay for your services when cash is tight, they need to be 100% sure that you’ll deliver great results. 

Apart from that, if you let someone down when they collaborate with you, why would they work with you again? That’s why being ‘completely true to your word’ is so key for Mark.

Always deliver on your promises. When times get tough, your clients, colleagues and suppliers will know that they can count on you to do the right thing. 

Know that you’re not alone

Running a business comes with many rewards, but also huge responsibilities. Knowing that you’re responsible for ensuring that your team continues to get paid when there’s far less work than usual coming through the door is an incredibly stressful feeling. 

Reaching out to other entrepreneurs who are going through the same situation can be such a relief during these difficult moments. Knowing that you aren’t alone will help to take some of the weight off your shoulders. Then you can focus on growing your business through economic turbulence. 

Value everyone around you

Show people how much you appreciate them. Recessions – particularly when they are as severe as this one – are some of the most challenging periods of any entrepreneur’s career. The best way to get through them is as a team. Even if you’re thinking about how to survive through the rest of the year, make sure that you ask everyone else on your Zoom calls how their days are going before you get into the numbers. 

At the end of the day you’re all on the same team. However tense things might get, never forget that. If you stay united, then you’ll all get through this together. 

Mark has found that ‘during Covid as with previous challenging times, it has been my relationships that have been my biggest asset and comfort’. By supporting each other and building a network of entrepreneurs who care about each other, we'll all get through this recession together.