The next few months are going to be difficult and challenging for many businesses. Some businesses will fail and lots of people will – through no fault of their own – lose their jobs. Even businesses with resilience to the COVID19 virus, such as those with largely home-based workers, will undoubtedly have customers and clients that will struggle and may fail to pay their bills.

The self-employed will be hit particularly badly as many of the government support measures, such as the relaxation of the rules regarding SSP, will not apply to them.

Conservation of cash and tight control of expenditure should be a priority. Discretionary expenditure should be challenged. Be careful, however, not to cut back by more than is essential to survive on marketing. More than ever it’s essential that you know your marketing numbers so you can direct your resources to those activities which give you the greatest return on investment.

I am naturally concerned about the effects of the virus and how this will affect our clients and their families. Our thoughts are with you and your loved ones at this worrying time.  

The health and well-being of all our clients is of the utmost importance. I urge you to follow government and health service advice and take all the steps necessary to stay safe and well. 

Fortunately I am already home-based and have been for several years; all of my services are – or are capable of being – delivered remotely. You can deliver documents to me - and receive them – safely via our secure online portal and by encrypted email. The investment we have made in cloud based applications and software means that we can continue to provide a normal level of service.

The only change some clients may experience to your normal service is that we will be cancelling some face to face meetings and moving these to our online platform, Zoom. Most of our clients are already familiar with using this platform and so it won’t make a huge difference. I apologise in advance if this is inconvenient but as a family member is in a high-risk category I have been advised that this is a sensible precaution to take. The only drawback is that I’ll have to make my own tea! I will advise you separately if this applies to your monthly meeting.

If you haven’t already done so I urge you to update your business’s budget and cash flow forecast for the remainder of 2020 and then run a ‘worst-case what-if’ scenario. If, as is likely, this shows that you will need additional funding to survive, act now to secure the necessary funding from your investors, bank or the government backed scheme announced in last week’s budget.

I will do whatever is necessary to support our clients through the next few months. Above all, stay safe.

Noel Guilford