You Might Need to Jump Start Your Car 

If you could start a new business in a couple of months’ time, what would that business be?

Imagine it for a moment – a completely new business.  Now, with the experience you’ve got in business so far, what would you do differently from before? What additional things would you like to put in place? 

Hold those thoughts. 

Kevin Harrington has a son-in-law that has been making the most of the enforced lockdown with his young family. Then he had a (permitted) need to go to a site on business. His car wouldn’t start; the battery was flat after weeks of the car being unused. He had no jump leads, he’s never needed any before, and he had to get outside help to get things going again. 

This got Kevin thinking. Flat batteries might not be our problem when we restart our businesses after the lockdown, but it is quite likely there will be other issues, many of them predictable, that will stop us making progress. 

What Would Your New Business Be?

So back to the questions I was asking you at the beginning: if you can start a new business in a couple of months’ time…what would it be? It would, of course, be the business you wanted. And you’ll be so much wiser based on your past experience. 

The reality is when you do come to restart your business in two month’s time it will, in many ways, feel like a new business. Perhaps it’s time to make it the one you really want it to be? 

Today, you have the time to sit back and consider exactly what those ‘flat batteries’ will be for you, what your aspirations are, and what you need to do to create that great business. 

Many of your competitors are going to be caught out with the enormity of getting their business restarted. Don’t let it be you. By spending a little bit of time now you can get ahead of the crowd and jumpstart your business.  

Things to consider might include: 

1.  The structure of your business 
2. Shareholder agreements
3. Business forecasts 
4. Cash flow forecasts 
5. Supplier arrangements 
6. Customer contracts 
7. Training programmes for staff 
8. Succession planning 
9. Business exit 

All of these things can be thought about at leisure now but are likely to take a back seat in the frenzy of the restart of your business. 

Kevin Harrington

Partner

Having worked in technology, telecoms, consumer electronics, payments, media and publishing, Kevin has enjoyed an interesting career history that embraces product and services businesses at all stages of their journey.

Before joining Succession Plus he was CMO with The Panoply plc, a digitally native technology services company, founded in 2016, with the aim of identifying and acquiring best-of-breed specialist information technology and innovation consulting businesses. He joined The Panoply from Tungsten Network where he was Chief Commercial Officer.

Previous roles have included working with SMEs and large international businesses. Some highlights are Managing Director at the Emerging Payments Awards and the Prepaid Awards; Managing Director of Gx; Director of Sodexo Motivation Solutions; Global Marketing Director at BBC Worldwide; Product Group Marketing Manager with Sony UK.

His career started out in a completely different direction. His first two full-time roles were as a junior in an architect’s office and a civil engineering technician. Some of his drawings and designs were constructed and are still standing.