Coronavirus – pick up the phone! ☎️

As you can imagine, we’re having lots of conversations with Businesses owners who are being affected by social distancing, and now the lock down of the UK.

Most businesses have had to close their doors. Cash flow has dropped like a stone and they are rightfully worried.

In an earlier post, I talked about the importance of reducing your business and personal outgoings as far as possible. Since then though, I’ve had several conversations with clients who have spoken to their large lenders, but not necessarily everyone.

Given the level of impact on businesses, we would strongly recommend the following:

• Call everyone you make payments to, to ask for payment holidays or payment arrangements, explaining that your business has been adversely affected.
• Include everything! Don’t leave out the big boys, such as utilities. They are being receptive. If you have small direct debit payments, speak to those too!
• Pick up the phone! You may need to hold on for a while for some of these, but it will be far quicker than writing or emailing. Having a conversation gives you the chance to discuss your position and get a decision there and then.
• Don’t just cancel Direct Debits. It sends a very different message than the one you want to convey. It suggests you don’t want to pay, rather than you can’t at the moment. Make contact first and show willing.
• Include personal payments. If you can reduce your personal outgoings, that reduces the pressure on your business.
• Keep up to date on the support that is available and that will probably still be added to. The detail for many of the existing support is still to come out, but once that arrives we will all be able to make some meaningful decisions.
• Consider carefully whether to cancel contracts or subscriptions. You may need that to bounce back when this is all over. If you cannot make an arrangement, you may need to maintain that expense.

I found the post below in a Facebook page I belong to, but I thought it was worth sharing. Hopefully it reinforces my message!