Traditionally, during this season of the year, it is a time when “bounty” should be expected. Around this hemisphere, springtime is a period of harvest from ones’ efforts through the preceding months. To those of us who are small businesses, the hard times of the past should begin paying off in these days. You’ve heard phrases like “April showers bring May flowers,” so, let’s explore.
In this blog, we want to share the encouragement found in this season for our surviving small business friends. Of late, I have been modestly and very unprofessionally looking into Middle Eastern agriculture to get a sense of the fruitfulness to be expected in this season. Perhaps it can be an inspiration to you as spring springs out around us. And around your businesses.
In many nations there are two great harvests connected to this timeframe. There is one harvest tied to early springtime. It comes from grain which was planted in the fall of the last year. Often planted in mid-November, farmers plant this grain just before the extremely cold weather sets in, allowing rooting to begin to develop before the harsh coldness hits and growth is suspended. The winter is a time when little or no growth occurs, but farmers know that springtime is on the way. This is known as the first or early harvest of springtime.
Asking you to think a little abstractly here, think back at your business and the restraints by mandates and seemingly unreasonable demands put upon you and your business over several months or longer. Other businesses succumbed to the brutality of the season and the restraints put upon them, but you and your business hunkered down. I sense that, because of your perseverance, you and your business can expect unprecedented fruitfulness in this springtime and beyond.
But, wait, there’s more. It is my understanding that these same farmers (aka surviving small businesses) use this springtime to plant more grain, looking forward to another, early summertime crop. In this way, they begin the momentum necessary to be fruitful throughout the year. So what might this mean to you, my surviving small business friend? There is a saying to “make hay while the sun shines.” This is not far off point. While you are beginning to see some signs of business restoration and growth, know that prudent farmers (and businesses like yours), wisely look to the future for sustained, even increased growth. They do so by understanding the seasons and working in harmony with a natural process and seasonal cycles which have been showcasing themselves since the seasons began. This is not a time for reckless investments and frivolous attempts to grow (which is what has caused some of your peers’ businesses to fail), rather making wise growth decisions for future success.
If these insights have been helpful to you, let’s join together and make some conclusions about your present growth potential and sustained success. The fact that you are still around in what have been “the most challenging times for businesses” proves that you have another “sense” within you. It is not the non-sense of other competitors who squandered their potential successes who are no more. It’s a sense of perseverance, even wisdom in keeping people nearby (customers, clients and fellow workers) who can share this sense of steadfastness and help in the soon-coming growth. This springtime should be the beginning of great promise for you and your business. BizVid Communications, your fellow small business video producer, is with you.