Ask Jo Malone: Ignore this bump in the road because direction is better than speed

Small business agony aunt Jo Malone offers her advice on meeting business targets, and says don’t be afraid to be more of a tortoise than a hare once in a while.

Dear Jo

Before setting up my business three years ago, I wrote a detailed strategy document. I used it as the basis to gain investment from an extended network of friends, which has allowed us to create the company’s foundations. However, several factors outside my control (macroeconomic, mainly) mean I don’t think I’m going to hit the targets. Should I rewrite the strategy, disappoint investors or gun hard to hit the targets at the expense of long-term growth?

Jo says...

This is very much a chicken-and-egg situation, but welcome to the world of business! Unfortunately, the reality is that we don’t always get our predictions right as so many factors can alter the course of business and frustratingly have a knock-on effect on the goals we have set out to achieve.

Personally, I would do everything humanly possible to hit those annual targets but not at the expense of damaging the brand — and if you feel this could cost you long term, it may be better to forfeit the short term.

Learn from this and always build safety nets into your forecasts as it is far better to overdeliver, especially when investors are involved. However, before you beat yourself up, do remember investors are aware of the risks before they hand the funds over.

If there is a genuine reason why your business has not performed as planned — external factors — then you are able to forecast and plan around these and the simple fact is that the results are just going to take longer to come to fruition.

The question you should be asking yourself is how you are going to use this set of circumstances to make you and your business stronger.