What fun we had at the #Bx16 Business for Life event in Sydney this week. I felt so at home with my fellow curious small business owners – we are all eager to learn from others; especially from other’s mistakes.
I am happy to tell my story and to share what I have learned. Some of these lessons came from, chaos and real adversity. Not knowing what to do when suddenly struck by bad luck or misfortune.
I had two key messages for the group, on what it takes to be successful as a small business.
However, before I got to the lessons – I needed to share a bit about the journey. In fact, a story from the last 24 hours.
I work with the Redii.com team – in the office most days… supporting them in creating great productive workplace cultures for our clients… I love this work.
Yet the first message I got on Tuesday morning was to say that our tiny workplace in the Sydney CBD had been flooded… everything completely ruined – and the team of 12 had nowhere to go.
By the time I got to the city the troops had rallied at the café across the road. We went back upstairs to the office to see that the ceiling had caved in and everything completely sodden and filthy. It was a case of ‘grab’ your few personal things, everything was lost – we had to go.
I made one phone call to Risk to Business from the car on the way to the city, and they had located a co-working space for us at Gravity a few blocks away – the team and I trudged along, carrying what we could. The folks at Gravity had an area set aside for us that we could stay in until December… by 10.00am the laptops were open and we were back in business, supporting our clients.
Incredible really.
Whilst we lost all the physical things – the real essence of the business was even more evident; our sense of team, and our resolve to deliver productive cultures for our clients. Nothing would stop us.
My EA, the woman who gets me to the right place, at the right time, with the right message, was at the ready and whilst Risk to Business took care of everything such as an electrician to isolate power, building inspectors, insurance brokers, removalists, finding storage etc – She was there onsite to just get stuff done…
At Redii, one of our small perks is that you get an extra’s day leave for your birthday. Of course, we use our own Redii platform to make sure we deliver this to each team member seamlessly. Thank goodness we have automated birthdays, reminders and gift delivery through our platform because Redii.com sent me a message to say, ‘it was my EA’s birthday’. In all this chaos it ‘might have’ been forgotten…
Often in small business, we rush to the ‘urgent’… yet it is the important things that make the real difference. We cannot forget the essentials, and the people who support us and the importance of saying thank you – and noticing a colleague’s birthday. And having a system to help – makes me look good.
Ah, now those two key insights that I gave the group attending Bx16, in the context of, I know exactly what it is like to be in small business. It is hard. It is relentless. And you never ever get to finish your ‘to do list’. I live in that world too – where everything is not sorted. However, systems help me look as if I have everything handled.
This pic is of some of the team at our new temporary digs.
This weeks chaos…
