Running a business can sometimes feel like you’re facing a thousand headwinds at once.
You’re managing a team, production, customers, supply, sales, and countless unforeseen problems.
In the beginning, I really wondered how people did it.
I have a friend who often says, “You don’t have to be crazy to run a business, but it certainly helps”.
The number of problems we’ve faced as a business over the years (and continue to face) has been countless!
We had a contract manufacturer who made all our products close down, leaving us without anyone to make our products for a period of time.
We lost half our business overnight when a distributor dropped our products.
We faced lockdowns for the better part of two years, where cafes and businesses we supplied either shut down completely or were severely limited.
We’ve had shops we supply go bankrupt, burn down, or choose not to pay invoices.
Recently, like all businesses, we’ve been facing unprecedented inflation and rising costs across all aspects of our business, coupled with high interest rates that are reducing people’s disposable income.
Key production equipment has broken down.
Our core ingredient, cacao, has almost tripled in price due to global supply shortages affected by adverse weather conditions and crop disease. Although our certified organic cacao comes from Peru, the cocoa harvest from major producing countries like Ghana is projected to be the lowest in 22 years, affecting total supply globally and pushing up the price.
So what do you do when the proverbial sh*t is hitting the fan?
Firstly, recognise and remember that there is ALWAYS a gift (or many gifts) to the problem in front of us.
If our contract manufacturer didn’t close down, we wouldn’t be in our own factory today with the freedom to make and create our products.
If the distributor didn’t drop us, there wouldn’t have been the impetus to pave our own way with a new product range, establish our own distribution channels, and learn not to have more than 20% of our business tied up in one customer.
Some of the businesses that burnt down or didn’t pay invoices eventually rebuilt their business, repaid their invoices, and continue to be long-term valuable customers. Others have become important lessons on how to have effective policies that protect the business in those scenarios.
If there weren’t lockdowns, we wouldn’t have discovered whether our business was genuinely relevant in people’s lives, or what our core purpose was that really resonated with people. We might not have received government support in investing in new equipment, or been so driven to serve customers in a way that’s still positively impacting our business today.
In fact, the gifts and lessons that have come out of these problems have been so many that, although it wouldn’t be fun to go through it again, I don’t think I would want to live without those valuable gifts, lessons, and insights.
We are more creative, more resilient, and more resourceful as a result of going through these challenges.
Maybe the problem in front of us now is actually a gift that is yet to be recognised.
This requires an element of trust in the unknown. Because the problem is a problem! I need to face it, accept that this is what it is (and not necessarily how I wanted or wished it to be), and trust that something good, even extraordinary, will come of this. Not only that, this problem might be necessary and needed for the business — and for ourselves — to continue to grow and evolve in a healthy and resilient way.
So to the younger version of me that wondered how anyone did it, my answer would be that you develop a strength, resilience, and capacity you don’t realise you have until you go through, and importantly, GROW through, the challenges you face.
The current inflationary pressures and the global cocoa crisis are providing a lot of new opportunities for us to evaluate our current business offering, and explore new possibilities we had never before considered.
If you’re passionate about what you do, and you’re committed to bringing something extraordinary to the world and to people’s lives, you can be an unstoppable force that may be informed, but not determined, by external circumstances.
A quote from an old university textbook has always stuck with me:
“Anyone can be an entrepreneur who wants to experience the deep, dark canyons of uncertainty and ambiguity, and who wants to walk the breathtaking highlands of success. But I caution, do not plan to walk the latter until you have experienced the former.” — Anonymous
Matthew Hardie is the founder of Manuko.
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Matthew Hardie is the founder and director of Manuko.
