The Mackey Money Minute - 3 Rs to Recovery - Revenue Resilience

“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is right now.”

Resilience is the ability of a substance or object to return to its original shape after being bent, stretched, or pressed. Revenue resilience is the ability of your revenue stream to recover after an unexpected economic event. Resilience gives you the capacity to survive unexpected events, so you can thrive when the recovery comes.

If COVID has created unexpected economic fallout in your company, now is the time to prepare and plan to buffer the impact of the next crisis. Once a vaccine is in place, this challenge will have ended. It is a given that new challenges will arise. While the current challenges are fresh in your memory is the perfect time to assess and prepare.

Many years ago, I had a small client that turned into a large client. They grew and my company grew with them. I got lazy. Instead of finding more high-growth clients to mitigate the risk, I settled in and managed the growth from this one fast-growing client. What goes up must come down, and what goes up fast, comes down fast. When this client imploded, all from risks we had been red-flagging to them, we lost 40% or our revenue overnight. I had no backup plan.

My motto is, never let a good crisis go to waste. Failure, while not my favorite teacher, is my most thorough teacher. I put on my big girl panties and set about changing the way we attract clients and the types of services we offered. I carefully monitored my results to keep myself honest with my goals.

Two recessions have happened since with minimal impacts to our revenue. Luck? Sure, at least partly. But my ability to be lucky was supported by my preparation.

If COVID has caught you with your pants down, now is the time for you to put on your big girl (or big boy) panties, gather your team and reinvent, reimagine and recreate customer value and related revenue streams.

Take a few minutes and think about who should be on your revenue resilience team. What customers do you need to reach out to for their input? What new revenue channels have you been mulling over? Where are your expansion opportunities? Geographic? Customer segments? Value added sale to existing customers?

Write down your initial thoughts, right now.

Mackey