An Indonesian man named Mbah Ghoto died last week. He claimed to have been 146 and therefore the oldest person to have ever lived. His secret? Patience. What exactly it was he had to wait for remains a mystery. Whether he was as old as he claims to be is unknown since he said that he was born in 1870, despite Indonesia only starting to record births in 1900. The fact remains that he was an exceptionally old man. An Italian woman named Emma Morano died just a few weeks before and she too was described as being the oldest person alive up until that point. She was 117 at the time of her death and is thought to have been the last verified person alive who had first-hand experience of the 19th century (she was born in 1899). Her secret had nothing to do with one’s disposition; she credits her longevity to her genetics and three eggs a day, two of which were raw. This may sound like more trouble than it’s worth. However, lots of old people attribute their long lives to all sorts of things, from rubbing olive oil into their skin and eating a kilogram of chocolate a week to the best medicine available: laughter.
Lots of people may not want to live to be a hundred (not least because the routine of one’s life can demoralize even young people) but the ways in which one does it are as varied as the people themselves. Whether the so-called secrets have any basis in reality is difficult to determine. However, it is quite unlikely that any one of them is right because they do not unite all the people who live to be that old. However, in the world of business, the secrets to lasting a long time are quite obvious. Lots of successful, resilient companies have many things in common. Here are a few of them that you may want to emulate:
The challenges of life are complex and demanding. When it comes to business specifically, one of the greatest challenges is staying afloat amongst the tumultuous waters of the national and international economy. The financial crisis of 2008 demonstrated exactly how capricious and vulnerable the stock market can be. The causes are complex but it is thought that the collapse of the Lehman Brothers bank was the catalyst for a series of events that affected people all over the world. An estimated seven million people lost their homes alone. Running a business in this environment necessitates that you be versatile and more importantly, to be rather pessimistic in your outlook. If you anticipate future problems, you will have a better chance of dealing with them when they do arise. One of the ways in which you can always ensure that you have enough resources to weather a storm is to make sure that you maintain your business’ cash flow.
Cash flow problems are quite normal. It may be that you work on behalf of clients who do not pay you right away. Some businesses only pay out their debts at the end of the month and if your invoice is amongst them, you may find yourself out of pocket for a few weeks. The time and resources that you spent on behalf of that client were spent with the expectation that you would get enough money back to cover them. This will be the case eventually, but if you do not get paid immediately, you can find that you have problems. Starting new work for new clients may be difficult if you once again have to pay for resources and time without yet having been paid for the previous work. This situation can lead you to not being able to pay your own bills.
One of the most important is payroll. If you do not pay your staff on time, you could risk legal action, and your staff may leave and if they stay, they may not be all that motivated. Morale is important in a small business. One of the ways of dealing with this expense if you have cash flow problems is by utilizing payroll factoring. This means that you can effectively sell your accounts receivable invoices to a factoring company in exchange for enough cash to cover the cost of paying your employees. There is a small fee but since it prevents your business from stagnating, it may well be a good option.
If you have some disposable income and you decide to invest in a stock portfolio, you will be told the same thing over and over again: diversify. The idea is that if you put your money into many different industries, you will not be ruined if one begins to suffer. This is good advice for a small business too. You may have built your reputation on a particular service or product, but consumers can be notoriously capricious. In the retail industry, for instance, customers can expect a lot. A recent study found that 42% of Americans will stop shopping with a brand after just two bad experiences. While you will obviously do everything you can to prevent your customers from having any bad experiences, it is wise to diversify your income streams so that in the event that one may suffer (due to a factor outside of your control like the stock market for instance), you can still rely on the others.
However, the most crucial aspect of longevity in business is the ability to innovate. As an example, 46% of business did not have a website as of last year. Ecommerce is a $22 trillion market. The cost of a website is modest and when the internet is one of the main ways in which customers are going to interact with you and learn about your business, it is an expense that everyone should make room for. The 54% of businesses which do have a website are likely outperforming their analog counterparts. The internet is an obvious example but the fact remains that if you do not innovate, you will fail.
