How to Deal With Chaos and Turmoil as a Business Owner

I was on vacation with my family last week which was great! But it wasn’t the kind where you are completely unplugged and off the grid, which in hindsight, I kind of wish it had been, considering the news.

Unless you were off the grid yourself last week, you would have had a hard time missing the updates about the stock market crashing, tariff mania, and the reactions from business people, politicians, and foreign leaders.

Regardless of how you feel about it politically, it’s almost impossible not to expect that recent developments are going to have a negative impact on nearly all small businesses in the US.

Of course, if you are someone who imports products to sell here from another country, at least for now the chances are those items just got more expensive, a cost you will pay and may or may not be able to pass on to your customers.

Even if you only sell US-based goods or you are in a service business, the impact of inflation from the higher costs of imported products means people here will have less to spend on other things.

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There are also more people who are unemployed or will be soon (all the government layoffs don't actually show in the unemployment numbers until their severance pay runs out), which means fewer consumers spending money and likely everyone spending a bit more conservatively than they may have been until recently.

You may also feel like the stock market may not be your concern, either if you aren’t invested much or are a long term “buy and hold” investor (which is me!) but this also definitely has an impact on the overall economy because companies will tighten their spending and borrowing when they have lower valuations which in turn puts less money into the economy.

So all in all I picked quite a week to be out.

But here is the “but” coming. Or rather, two things (two buts?) that I think it is important to keep in mind to help you navigate these kinds of situations for both the short term and the long term in your business ownership journey.

Two Things to Keep in Mind When Chaos Strikes

The first one is for the near term and that is things are never as bad as they seem at first. Keep in mind, now more than ever news headlines are written to get your attention and get you to click. 

A headline that says “Stock Market Down” isn’t nearly as click inducing as one that says “Stock Market Craters US Wealth, Experts Advise Stockpiling Food and Water” or something similar.

The news tends to take the worst part of the worst news and then exaggerate that as if that was the whole story and everyone's experience.

So while it’s certainly true the market had a bad week and also true we’re likely going to see some slowing down, how it impacts you and your business is very much specific to you and might not be nearly as impactful or tragic as they are making it seem. 

Take a breath, see what evolves, and understand that the people shouting the loudest are as much just trying to get you look as give you any useful and actionable news. Things change, things get overstated, things may not turn out the way you first expect.

Nothing is likely to change today or tomorrow and that gives you some time to think about what you should do if certain things do change in the direction they look like they might go. 

Don’t panic and make sudden and drastic changes! Don’t despair that all is lost. It very likely isn’t but you should also not stick your head in the sand and hope it all goes back to normal or “like it used to be” because that rarely happens either.

I’ve owned my own business and had only myself to rely on for a paycheck since 2000. Just in that period of time we had 9-11, the 2008 financial crisis, and COVID- three major, major events that shook the US economy and the world.

In each case, it seemed for a minute like the world was over as we knew it. In each case, there were fundamental and long-lasting changes. But none of them was the end of the world and none of them came so fast that we couldn’t figure out how to cope and get up each day and make it through.

Bottom line here- expect ups, expect downs, don’t let either one get you rattled, just take it in stride and adjust as necessary once you know for sure what is actually coming not just what people are shouting in your face!

The second point is that you always want to make sure your business is on solid ground no matter what else is going on. That means you are profitable or on a direct and predictable path to profitability if you are new and that you have a good handle on your value to your customers.

If you aren’t good at running your business by the numbers, watching expenses, controlling growth, or managing debt, it may happen that during an event like this latest problem that you get squeezed a bit more than you can hold out through.

You may have made an educated gamble on growth, taking on debt in the short term to seize a great long term opportunity and just get hit right at the wrong time. But usually, smart operators like that can still find a way to power through because ultimately their business serves a valuable role for their customers.

More often, it’s the owners who don’t really understand their business that struggle when times get tight because they don’t have anything extra to offer customers and no way to retain or add business if they have to compete on something aside from price.

If you have a good, profitable business that provides real, unique value to your customers then you are going to be much more able to survive these ups and downs and potentially even benefit when others drop out and you can pick up more business.

Of course, for some businesses, there could be things that happen that impact you in a way you simply can’t ignore and navigate your way out of but those things will be much fewer and rarer if you are starting from a position of strength.

So no matter what is going on in the larger economy you should make sure you’ve got your own house in order and a very good grip on your numbers and business value proposition. If you do, then you’ll have much less need to ever lose sleep over these kinds of events. And not losing sleep over things is one of the best feelings you can get in life in my opinion.