For many small businesses, the key to getting through the Covid19 pandemic may be negotiating a sympathetic arrangement with the landlord or key suppliers. Are they prepared to offer rent or payment holidays during the height of the crisis to help you with short-term cash-flow pressures?
In practice, it will be in the interests of many landlords and suppliers to help rather than lose tenants and customers altogether. But to negotiate the right deal, you need to approach the situation carefully and sensitively. Start with a clear plan. What do you need from your landlord and for how long do you need this support?
Strike a balance between asking for all the help you will realistically need, going back later to ask for further forbearance may get a negative reaction, and pushing too hard. Landlords and suppliers will have their own pressures.
Talk to your landlord and suppliers as soon as you can, ideally before you miss any payments. The later you leave it, the weaker your negotiating position will be. Set out the benefits of offering your business help: where possible, remind landlords and suppliers of your good payment history and strong credit score and provide detail of your longer-term prospects.
Make the point that others in your sector – potentially alternative tenants and customers -will be in the same boat as you. Where you can pay at least something, offer to do so. This will often be better received than a request for a complete payments holiday. It also means the landlord or supplier will be better off with you than with no customer or tenant at all.
Motivational Quote Of The Day
“A dream becomes a goal when action is taken toward its achievement.”
Bo Bennett
Alternative Quote Of The Day
“I was playing chess with my friend and he said, ‘Let’s make this interesting’. So we stopped playing chess.”
Matt Kirshen
The Idle Opportunity
According to The Sunday Telegraph, Britons use their lawnmowers for an average of just four hours a year. They’re being kept pretty busy compared to power tools though, which are used for an average of 20 minutes throughout their entire lifespan!
There just has to be an opportunity lurking in these statistics. Wouldn’t people be far better off renting these things when they need them? And if you could create a service which made it really easy to get hold of them – perhaps dropping them off and then picking them up again – might that form the basis of a profitable business?
And might all these under-used lawnmowers and power tools be mobilised in your new business in some way – providing an income for their owner and a ready source of ‘rental stock’ for the business?
Something to think about perhaps.
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