- Hi, YouTube, I'm James Sinclair,
and for the last three and a half years
I've made hundreds of videos helping entrepreneurs
and business owners grow their business.
I've tried to do motivational stuff.
But I think sometimes it's really good for viewers
and aspiring entrepreneurs to know that
it ain't always great being a business owner,
and actually there's loads of sleepless nights,
and loads of worries.
And so in this video, I'm going to talk about
my biggest struggles especially in 2020,
the year of the coronavirus,
of how I've navigated my business through,
so that you in turn can know you're not
the only one going through this.
If you've struggled in 2020 with coronavirus
and you're a business owner
and you want to know
how to get out of those struggles,
the best thing that you could do
is subscribe to this YouTube channel
and hit that notification bell.
So we can let you know
with the gods of YouTube when we're bringing
out great new content to help grow your business.
Let's do it.
What I'd love you to do is when we're going
through this video, if you could just comment below
and let me know, what's been your biggest struggles
in 2020 with this coronavirus
this pandemic.
I want to just go through
because I think we can now start to think,
well, we've got a vaccine on the way.
And we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
And I don't think we're out of the tunnel.
I think next year's going to be really difficult
as the government pullback stimulus to help businesses,
which I don't think they should be doing by the way.
I think they should be giving us another year
of tons and tons of help when we're trading
at normal capacity so that people have got time to get
through this and I'll be writing to MPS.
And I urge you to do the same.
For example, if you're in leisure, hospitality and retail
I want you to make sure you don't have business rights
for another year.
I want you to make sure
that you have the lower VAT for another year.
I also want to make sure that this job bonus
I mean, you know, I don't know if anyone can remember this.
We were expecting 350,000 pounds in January/February
for bringing all of our staff for furlough moves
getting a thousand pounds per head for doing that.
The government has said, we're not doing that now.
We'll look to bring that back in
after March when furlough ends.
And we need to be making sure that we're banging the drum
of that because small businesses were really allowing
for that in their cashflow.
So they can get through like now January, February
we've lost that 350,000
I was hoping that would come in
to invest into our business and blah, blah, blah.
So I'll be campaigning for all that stuff.
So this has been some of my struggles in 2020
trying to predict what the government's going to do.
I don't think we've therefore really have to do
as business owners, entrepreneurs
we never had such.
I never predicted that they would give us a thousand pounds
for bringing everyone back off furlough.
And then I never, ever in my mind predicted
that they would not do that in January, February and say
we're just doing that later on in the year, next year.
And then not stopped
They've stopped talking about it.
So my worry is I just going to take that away from it.
So that's a real pain point for me as well.
Losing your mojo has been something else
that I think has happened in 2020 and I think will happen
to all entrepreneurs and business owners.
You go in through and you're in a really lonely place
being a business owner.
You're like, God, there's no one really to talk to
other than other business owners, but they're all so
busy trying to deal with trying to save their businesses.
So you can lose your mojo.
Well, I think it's really important and entrepreneurs
and business owners, if you don't have bounce ability.
So if you lose your mojo for a day
how are you going to make sure
they bounce back tomorrow?
And I've loads of videos on this sort of stuff.
In fact, I've done the whole Ted talk on that.
Maybe we'll put a link to that Ted talk above me here
about how I've been able to
use bounce ability to bounce back.
When you lose that feeling of come on,
let's keep driving
let's keep going.
And that's one of the biggest struggles
about being an entrepreneur.
You have to pull your team with you.
You have to pull the business with you
when all the odds are stacked against you.
I think one of the biggest things
about being a business owner as well is people
only ever think about the end result.
When I say people
I mean the people that are viewing you as a business
or he's really successful or she's really successful
or that business is really successful
but they only see the end result.
It's not when they see a doctor, well, they see a barrister
I think core that person's fantastic.
So super-duper professional
but they forget the 15 years of training.
They got to them to that stage.
And that's the same with businesses.
You think only 5% of businesses make it 10 years old.
So 95%, but the 5% of businesses go.
So you've got to make sure that when you do lose your mojo
and you will lose your mojo and sometimes in your business
that you're going to have the strength to
use bounce ability to bounce back as quick as possible.
What are the other things?
I think entrepreneurs have very very good at is pivoting.
Pivoting into profitable situations
and pivoting their time, effort, energy
and enthusiasm into the right channels.
Certainly if you're going to be successful in business
you need to be able to pivot at speed.
But this year
I've seen people have to pivot faster than ever.
And that is really energy sucking.
When you have to think like, Oh
I'll think about our business
we started out being a pumpkin picking village.
We had to close all of our businesses down,
reopen all of our businesses, open our farm shop, reclose
our Christmas shop, open our Christmas shop.
That's fine.
All of these new ways to bringing cash, to pay all the bills
and all that constant pivoting where you might (inaudible)
once every year when the market changes, for example,
say you're a retail shop and now everyone's online
and you've to pivot your business online.
That this year, I feel like I've pivoted 10, 20
30 times in quite big ways.
So that can be really, really energy sucking.
What are the other things?
I think it's something that really has affected me
as well, is risking cash risking a capital,
knowing that we might get locked down.
And that's what I think
about our Christmas shop when he was doing this challenge
for boxing day, where we're bringing up
a brand new documentary at seven o'clock on boxing day.
And we really hope you can watch it is where
we're trying to build a million pound business from scratch.
And we were going like gangbusters.
We were there, we were going to do it.
So I invested tens of thousands,
hundred thousand (inaudible)
into stock on big tops to build this business.
But the problem was the government come and locked us down.
So we couldn't trade.
Then you start thinking, should I be investing in anything?
Should I just stop doing everything
until everything goes back to normal.
Oh, when is it going to be normal?
I didn't expect the country to go into a second lockdown.
Are we going to have a third lockdown in January?
All of these questions flying around in my head.
And that leads me to anxiety
about bringing in enough cash to pay all my bills.
I have that all the time.
(inaudible)I just want to level with you, you know,
I've payrolls.
Like this November payroll that's just gone
was nearly half a million pounds.
So that does leave me with that anxiety sometimes.
Like, how am I going to make sure I have
enough cash always coming in?
That's been all right for the last 15 years
but then I see things like top shop and the Arcadia group
which was like the Kings of the high streets now going
into administration because they can't bring
in enough cash to service all of their bills.
Next thing, managing my DNA to grow my business.
Maybe DNA is the problem.
It's like a cancer of entrepreneurs.
I always want to do new stuff.
I always want to grow my business.
I always want to invest.
I always want to push myself to my absolute limits.
I am never, ever happy with what I've got.
I'm never happy with just the status quo.
I always want to be a disruptor.
I always want to put more energy effort, enthusiasm
start new businesses, start new revenue streams,
regenerate my existing businesses.
So they're always at the top of their form.
And that can be really tough at times
because you've got this pulling to always do more and more
but then you're going to take what you've got to
make sure you've got enough cash coming
in to pay all the bills.
So making sure you manage your DNA and I get anxiety.
If I don't achieve, if I'm not doing deals
if I'm not making things happen, if I feel
like I'm not working at the top of my potential
I can have some really dark moments and like,
Oh, good luck, you can do more Jim.
You have the ability to do more.
And if I feel like I'm not doing more
that can be really tough.
And this year has made me really think
about things like that.
One of the other things as well this year
especially I produce monthly accounts,
track my profit and loss.
And when I'm seeing cash go out or the time
to rents and utilities and not much cash coming
in because of lockdowns
that that can be really demoralizing,
I think, why should I carry on going?
That's the thing.
I always quote this Steve jobs quote.
And I think it's really important
that you understand if you're seriously entrepreneurial
there will be some insanity about you.
Steve jobs said most people give
up because they're sane.
My big worry about being a business owner
and the type of person I am
is my biggest struggle is I will never give up
because I'll never quit.
It can be really, really tough
at times for the people around me, my friends, my family
because I will always strive to go further and do more.
And sometimes when you look at years like this
and you go back and you think
should just give up on some stuff,
but if you give up,
is it easier to give up?
Are you a better human being?
Because at the end of the day,
it's only a business.
It's only a business.
More businesses will start
one day I'll die and I'll be out.
That'd be me finished on this planet.
And someone else will take over my businesses
and just some food for thought that
if you liked this video
make sure you subscribe to the channel
by clicking here
and going to check out my
other videos on entrepreneurs,
balance ability
and getting through tough times by clicking here.
I'm James Sinclair.
I'll see you really soon.
Bye bye