At 42 years old, Andre Hampton has experienced several world-changing events and the fallouts from each of them as a business owner, an investor and as an employee.
Now in addition to leading the financial advisory firm StreamS Capital, Hampton is the founder and head of the Ignite Accelerator Program, a 6-week program offered each quarter to help grow Tampa Bay businesses in the service industry, from plumbers to architects, medical businesses, accountants and more.
The Ignite Accelerator Program, which kicked off in early 2019, aims to help business owners get group support as well as individualized mentorship to build out strong, sustainable product ecosystems while positioning themselves as experts and authorities in their fields.
However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the program for April 1 has been canceled. In the meantime, Hampton said, Ignite is heading online, where the first 100 online users will get a professionally produced 2-minute pitch video included with their program fee. For the remainder of 2020, Ignite is discounting its program cost from $4,000 to $1,500.
“We look forward to continuing to support our local community and becoming a resource for entrepreneurs and small business owners who make up the fabric of main street America,” Hampton said. Through Ignite as well as StreamS Capital, Hampton is developing assistance programs to help local service-based businesses switch to online operations.
He offered some tips and advice for business owners in the coming weeks and months.
- Cut all unnecessary costs
“With the uncertainty, if there’s anything in the businesses that is absolutely not critical to function you’ll probably need to pull the plug across the board.” This goes for all but proven successful marketing campaigns, he said. After all, there’s no way to know how long the pandemic might continue, or how long it will take the economy to recover.
“It could be 12 months, it could be 18 months (until the pandemic ends). Work’s going to keep functioning but this is going to be really weird.”
- Preserve/build cash reserves.
“Be as liquid as possible right now with all the uncertainty,” Hampton said.
He advises businesses to save every dollar they can, call their banker and look for any money available with a low to moderate interest rate, utilize SBA disaster loans and tap into open credit lines. Be sure to keep open lines of communications with investors and creditors.
- Target core competencies
“Whatever the meat and potatoes of your business is, is where (to) focus,” he said. “Ancillary streams or lines that maybe are not performing, now might be the time to just shelf them.”
Consider the medium and long-term effects this will have on the world and by extension, on your business. What's the new normal and what adjustments do you anticipate in the markets?
- Focus on profitability.
Consider what the coming months look like, and take a hard look in the mirror.
“A lot of people have businesses that are a constant struggle and they have been for years. At this point you need to stop and reevaluate, ‘Why am I doing this?’… ‘Do I need to be doing something a little different?’ ‘Is it time to pivot (personally)?’”
For some business owners, he said, it may be time to “shut it down, shut it off and figure out something new.”
A couple of additional points to consider:
First, unless your business was uniquely positioned for growth in this type of atmosphere, raising capital will be extremely difficult.
Secondly, you will need to adjust for new costs related to doing business for the coming months, such as additional cleaning products and adjusted work hours. If you’re a restaurant your profit margin could all be sucked up by these extra costs, and you may need to increase prices or make other adjustments in order to remain viable.
- Long-term planning
If and when you’re locked up at home, carve out time to implement estate and succession planning strategies you've been postponing, such as adjusting your life insurances, updating your wills and living trusts, formalizing buy-sell agreements and re-evaluating your retirement and/or private pension plans.
As this pandemic has shown us, you never know what can happen.
