Covid 19 and the impact on a small UK business owner

Intro

2020 has been a rollercoaster of a ride. Like many businesses in 2020, we have seen a large impact on our sales and profits. The results from an underperforming year have impacted our growth, having less in the pot to invest in 2021. Without music & sporting events and get-togethers in general, the buyer intent isn’t there at the moment. Taking into account other businesses that are in the same situation has lead to less spending with companies less likely to splash out on goods that are no longer essential. Will 2021 also see the effects on consumer spending? I would think this is highly likely and would expect the next 12 months to be a struggle for some. We’ve been fortunate enough that our growth year on year has seen us through albeit it been a rocky ten months and a little disheartening at times. However, we should always take a positive from a negative. The downtime has given us time to evaluate, and I have no doubt that will be back stronger than ever and wiser for the experience.

From a humble beginning in 2005, we now sell over 200 products to companies and individuals throughout the World. In this blog, I give a brief outline of starting a business and the time and effort it’s taken to get us here. The story also explains how the year has unfolded and how we like most, were caught on the back foot with the coronavirus outbreak.

There’s no such thing as an overnight success.

Banner World hasn’t been an overnight success even though to some, it may appear this way.

The company if you could call it that back then was started in my flat in 2005 where I purchased my very own apple mac. The computer was a basic model and all I could afford which I’d saved up over 12 months to buy. Bought complete with, printer, desk and office chair for the princely sum of £850 I had everything I needed to start doing a few jobs in the evenings and weekends. This statement will sound utterly ridiculous to younger people, but this was the first time I’d ever had my own internet access, and I was blown away with the potential of the world wide web. So much in fact that within six months I was sourcing radio-controlled cars and helicopters from China and selling them on eBay. It was at this time that I’d realised the power of the internet and decided then that the future of buying signage would be eCommerce and I wanted a slice of the action.

Day Job.

My day would start at 6.30 when I’d be up showered and ready to set off for my 45-minute commute to work where work began at 7.30. The company I worked for was a large format digital printing company in Preston. The hours were long, but the pay was decent, and I worked with a good bunch of lads, every day was a laugh a minute which helped pass the day. The company had a factory and a separate office which was situated a few minutes walk away. I worked in the factory where it was male-dominated with no female workers, and if you were a fly on the wall, you’d understand why females weren’t present. Most of my workmates were similar ages all in our early to late ’20s, and the place was a madhouse with practical jokes, mickey-taking, plenty of banter and lads just being lads. I have some brilliant memories of the six years working in Preston, with too much mayhem and mischief to mention. What do you expect when you have 15 young men working together with the management a 5-minute walk away.

Overtime.

Most nights I’d return home at the earliest time being 6 pm. Have some quick tea and maybe an hour at the gym and I’d be back in front of my computer screen from 8 pm and usually not getting finishing until midnight. Long days like this was a weekly routine for around three years. The work was varied. I would do artworks for some local advertisers in the week, and some weekends, I’d be doing some van signwriting or a small signage job. It was handy working in a sign related company as this gave me access and invaluable experience working on print equipment that your average sign man wouldn’t own or have the knowledge to use. Having access to the latest printing and finishing equipment enabled me to create designs at weekends and then to produce them at work after hours. I’d get the lads in the office to price me up jobs in the office, and then I’d manufacture them in my own time. As the company worked with large corporate clients, small signage jobs and signwriting vans weren’t their forte, so there was no conflict of interest. Slowly I was filling my time working most evenings and weekends.

An overview of starting a business.

In 2008 I took the plunge into the world of self-employed. I rented a small council-owned 880sq ft unit and with a £5k loan took the first steps into creating my own business working as a sole trader. My handful of clients wasn’t enough to keep me busy so most days I’d be trying to keep busy doing some promotional work or speaking to local business people trying to drum up some sales. Slowly but surely work picked up, and by mid-2009, I was busy most days. By 2012 I was working flat out usually working 80+ hour weeks. It was in June of that year that I moved to slightly larger premises and employed my first member of staff. 

E-commerce.

The first e-commerce site I had built was an investment of £10,000, which at the time was a massive amount of money. For all the effort I received one £35 order in 12 months. I was spending £500 every month on SEO with no returns only to be told you need to spend more!! In 12 months I’d wasted all my money and gave up. Most would give up at this point, but with perseverance and the willingness to keep going with many other failed attempts under the belt, we finally achieved our goals.

The end game was to operate an eCommerce business selling signage related products. Without going into great detail, and four failed attempts later, we did eventually succeed. With each failure, the only thing you could take away was the experience of learning what not to do. Over time with constant improvements, you get slighter nearer to the finish line. 

Banner World.

In 2014 we launched Bannerworld.co.uk. What started as an addition to our local work Banner World exceeded our expectations. In 2018 our online revenue accounted for over 95% of all our sales. We now undertake very little local work and out of loyalty only deal with a handful of existing customers. The business has grown more quickly than we imagined with significant growth each year. In 2017 up our sales were up a massive 60% on the previous year. In the last two years, we have levelled out a little but still seeing annual growth of around 30-40% which is still very impressive.

The ability to predict future sales gives us the power to see in the future. However, we’re not mind-readers. By studying previous years means we estimate how things are progressing and how we can invest back into the business. What happened this year nobody was expecting. We can only plan for things that we can control. What happens when something happens which is out of our control? Usually, we’ll find a workaround. What about the world shutting down? What’s the workaround now?

2020. The importance of ‘not’ being idle, well trying.

Being passionate about my business but my aversion to the year 2020 makes for an appropriate heading to this intro—The importance of ‘not’ being idle. Even though being a massive Oasis fan, I’m not too fond of this particular track. If I’m honest, I use the term too fond politely, if it came on the radio I’d turn the thing off. Apologies if you do enjoy it, but if I heard this dreary, dull, cringeworthy song again, it would be too soon.  

The same goes with running a business, I love the daily grind, but the year 2020 is definitely one for the bin. If I had a magic fast forward button and with one click fast forward the year, I’d be pressing the switch.

So what’s the point here with the blog? Whether it be mentally or financially, the blogs about the struggles with running a business throughout the pandemic and the emotional and financial impact.

How we can suppress the feelings of boredom, keep level headed and not to fall into the trap of becoming lazy.  

Resolutions.

It’s January 1st 2020 just after midnight, and we’ve just let in the new year. My wife’s family have this tradition of walking out the back door, and around the front to let in the new year to come, with the walking in and out the door complete it’s time to carry on with the celebrations. New Years always a little emotional for me, and I’m probably not the only one who feels this way. Belting out Auld Lang Syne and reminiscing good times had with relatives and friends no longer with us. We raise a glass to the forthcoming year in the hope that they are looking down on us from the heavens.

Half drunk and reflecting as I always do on another positive year, 2019 was a belter. I’d celebrated my 40th Birthday, been away on a couple of holidays and life was serving up some good stuff. Work was doing well, and it was only going to get better in 2020

With the New Year behind us, it’s nearly time to get back to the grind. As always, I’m still excited to get back into work and get working on pushing forward. The festive holidays are brilliant for looking back on the year at the successes and failures and also planning the next year and setting out your years targets and goals. The holiday is a perfect time to unwind with family and get the batteries recharged for the next 12 months. In another couple of days, I’d be back in the office and Christmas would be another distant memory.

A prosperous New Year.

After a refreshing two-week break we’re back at work and ready to go. As usual, Christmas and the run-up is a slow time for the signage industry with December usually being a loss-leader. During the festive period, a few jobs will trickle in, and they’ll be plenty of enquiries to be catching up on. The 1st week of January is usually steady, which is excellent to get you back into the swing of things. The 2nd week of January is where it kicks off again, and it’s back to business as usual. This year has started busier than ever with a record-breaking January followed by a record-breaking February. Things are looking up, and it’s brilliant being back in the hot seat.

A good day follows a good morning.

We’ve all got out of the wrong side of the bed. When this happens, everything usually goes wrong for you. You set off for work late, you get stuck behind a bus, the traffic lights all turn to red, and everything from the off goes against you. You’ve started the day swimming against the tide, and it’s not letting up. Now, this isn’t a coincidence its a state of mind, and you’ve started your day off on the wrong footing. Take a deep breath or take 5 minutes out, press the reset button and start again.

The Morning routine at Banner World is more relaxed to most places I’ve worked, and for that, I thank my previous employers. We get in around 8 am and have a couple of coffees and a chin wag about whatever, be it the news or what happened at weekends, family stuff just general chit-chat. We have a good thirty minutes of chatting, which makes for an excellent start to the day. There’s nothing worse than walking into work at 8 am to be instantly inundated with the day’s tasks ahead. Because of the relaxed way that we work, none of us ever clock-watch. If anything we clock-watch in reverse wondering how the day has gone too fast. So much to do and so little time to do it makes for a happy, engaging working environment. So why do we choose to start the day this way?

Ring the bell.

The first full-time job I had was at Granthams Signs. Granthams had this ridiculous school bell type of system which rang at 8 am for the start of the day and rang to announce the opening and finish of brew times, dinner times and home times. Dingalingaling!!! Better go and fetch my cup! The sound of the dreaded antiquated bell system would turn my stomach; I liken it to the feeling you get when an alarm clock goes off in the morning. Surely I’m not the only one who dreads the noise of the alarm clock.

The ringing bell is one of the reasons that we have a more relaxed approach to the working day. At the same time though we’re not the type of people who run out of the office at 5 pm. If you remove the restrictions you give yourself and your colleagues a better place to work, a place where everyone gets on has a break when they want. Removing restrictions increases everyone’s happiness, creativity and productivity.

Have you heard about this Virus?

It was a typical morning around mid-January, and we were having our usual morning chin-wag. Have you heard about this Virus in China? I had, but I’d not thought much of it. We all know a mysterious deadly virus had started to spread in China. For most of January, the news was reporting about it. If I’m truthful, I paid very little attention to the discussion that morning. I thought to myself its probably another BBC smokescreen, one of these diversion tactic jobs that the state does to cover up something else. So I’m sat here nodding my head in politeness, thinking what a load of balls, and I even commented that we shouldn’t worry as it would all blow over in a few weeks. Cue the family fortunes incorrect answer buzzer!! If only I knew.

Manchester February 28th 2020.

It was my best mates 40th, and we’d arranged a day out in Manchester. It was raining when we got off the train at Oxford Road station, and we made our 5-minute walk to the first of many pubs that we often frequent on our typically annual trip out to MCR.

The Circus Tavern is the smallest pub in Manchester, and we got to the pub at around 11.30. The lady behind the bar pulled us a pint, and we sat down in a little booth. My mate was asking me about work and how it was going. I told him how we had a good start to the year, and how 2020 was going to be another belter. We were catching up on things as we hadn’t seen each other for age with more some general gossip when the bar lady came over to us and started some small talk. At the same time, she looked out of the window.

“it’s terrifying me this virus,” she said,

The lady was waffling on about this Coronavirus, how we might get locked inside our houses. She was worriedly looking out over the street to a double-decker bus parked up, arms folded.

“There could be people on that bus carrying this virus and spreading it around, and they wouldn’t even know they had it,” she said.

You could tell by her voice and body language that she was concerned, and up until that point, she was the first person who I’d met that looked frightened about this supposed Coronavirus. We sank a couple of pints and said our goodbyes to the woman behind the bar and left to walk to the next pub. When we got outside, we couldn’t fathom why she was worrying so much. As both of us are always busy flitting between work or home we hadn’t seen that many people to talk about it and hadn’t paid it much attention. We concluded that she was some barking mad hypochondriac worrying about nothing. We walked chuckling to ourselves to the next pub and warmed up for a good day out.

The times they are a changin’.

It’s the start of March, and we’re entering busiest six months of the year. The sign industry is very seasonal, and we usually squirrel away every year, putting acorns away for the leaner months. Each year starts slowly, and we gain momentum around the start of March with May, June and July being the busiest peak months. March began well as always and was looking to better the previous years month. We were now entering the start of our peak time and looking forward to another busy year; sadly, peak season lasted only two weeks.

The house of cards collapsed on the 2nd week of the March as panic set in the phones stopped ringing the orders dried up. The problem with banners is they are primarily used for advertising events. When there’s nothing to advertise, then the orders stop flowing.

Panic!

Worry and panic ran through my mind. What was going to happen to Music events? Festivals? Exhibitions and trade show which account for 50%+ of our sales? Everything was closing or getting cancelled. Our business and the World around us was in turmoil. As I sat in our office on the 3rd week of March, I couldn’t believe how much a severe blow had hit us. How could I have been so stupid not to notice what was going on in the World? We were now two weeks into the disaster zone, and I was anxious. How could we pay for the outgoings and wages? When would things go back to normality? Would we all be affected by the Virus? Nobody, including my self, knew what to do. And when uncertainty rears its head, panic starts to creep in.

The World, as I knew it had come to a grinding halt. It had to be a blip, maybe a very large blip. But how long would it go on? And how long would we need to survive? Yes, we’re in a good position financially but how long could we carry on paying out without anything coming back in. Any business be it big or small needs a certain amount of money coming in to cover its fixed costs. Without it, you’ll cease to trade, and it’ll usually happen more quickly than you’d expect. As the old saying goes, the bigger you are, the greater the fall.

Pressure.

I’ll admit it now that I could feel the pressure mounting and wasn’t emotionally in the best of places. Through no fault of my own, the business I’d spent 12 years of my life was on the line. The whole situation was self-consuming. The constant worry was massive on my shoulders, and I was worried for myself and colleagues. We wouldn’t find out for another few weeks how we would get through. The strain at work was getting critical, and most of our work had dried up. There were overheads and colleagues wages to pay, commitments to contracts we had to fulfil, and I felt helpless to do anything to fix things. Helplessness is a weird feeling, up until this point I’d never felt helpless in business. I liken it to falling into deep water and not knowing how to swim, doesn’t matter how much you flap your arms you begin to panic and start to sink.

Extra Pressure.

In 2019 we had invested in some land which contained some old agricultural buildings. The plan was to develop the land and rebuild an old structure on-site and turn into our new factory. We’d overspent and was looking to claw this back in 2020, at present was not looking likely. The purchasing and planning processes took an age, and we started building work at the beginning of March. Because of the circumstances and financial worries, we had to stop the building works after only three weeks. The unfinished building work added to the extra pressure. We had a demolished building now unusable, and we had spent a significant amount of cash knocking the building down and purchasing the plot.

Lifeline.

On Friday, March 20th after an appalling week at work, I’d decided to go for a couple of pints at the local pub, it was around 5 pm. I sat for an hour or so had about 3 pints and went home. I wasn’t in the mood for socialising and chatting about the news. The topic of conversation that night was the pandemic. There was though some good news that evening which lifted some pressure. The government had announced that they would be giving small businesses with premises a £10k business grant and 80% of wages through a furlough scheme. We’d received a much-needed lifeline.

Going home.

It was Monday, March 23rd. I’d gone into work as usual, and throughout the day noticed this nagging dry cough not thinking much of it. I decided to play things safe, so I packed up my desk and took my things home. We didn’t know it then, but I wouldn’t be coming back any time soon. That same evening the government put us into a national lockdown. The following morning at 3 am, I woke up aching from head to toe and freezing cold. I can only describe the symptoms to that of mild flu. Not being 100% I had the Virus and not being the person to winge about it I spent the day in the office upstairs doing bits of work as usual. I made a phone call to a friend explaining that I thought I might have the Virus. I could tell by his voice on the phone that he didn’t believe that I had this deadly Virus, and I explained that apart from feeling achy and a little tired I was ok. The next day I woke up was when the Virus really kicked it, and I have to admit I have never felt so ill with each day passing getting worse.

Wiped out.

I’ve only ever been ill enough not to work twice in my life. The first time was in 1999 when I got flu. If any of you have ever had proper flu then you will understand, I was 20 years old, and couldn’t get out of bed for four days. I remember descending the stairs crawling down on my hands and knees like a 2-year-old as I couldn’t stand up, that’s how bad it was. However, with the flue, after 4-5 days, I was pretty much back to normal, and I was only 20. 

Coronavirus was different. I had no energy to do anything. I spent day after day getting up and thinking to myself I feel a little better but by 11 am I’d be back in bed with no energy to do anything. I didn’t want to eat; nothing tasted nice, albeit I could still smell which was weird. I sat in the garden wrapped up in a hoodied top with the hood up over my head even though it was mid-spring and the weather was glorious. I’d sleep 14 hours a day and sat on my own throughout so not to pass it onto my little girl and wife. The time that I did spend awake, I’d be in front of the wood burner with it blasting away on full blast but still feeling cold to the bone. The worst symptom was the ability to think clearly, and I couldn’t seem to get my head into gear. Even the simplest of tasks was a struggle. I remember sitting in the bath one day, and it took me well over an hour to contemplate the thought of getting out. I remember sitting there topping the bath up with hot water, unable to muster the courage to get up and out of the bathwater.

I did slowly got better and was starting to eat more regular after around two weeks. But it wasn’t until the 3rd week that I felt normal again. It’s incredible how you can change your mind about something especially when it’s happening to you. The Virus was the real deal I was sure of that and potentially lethal to older, less healthy individuals.

Inactivity breeds.

One godsend that we had in 2020 was the beautiful weather. It was mid-April, and I was feeling much better just in time for my Birthday. Myself, like many others in the UK, decided to have a two-month all-out house party. When you have nothing to occupy your mind, it’s sometimes too easy to slip into the trap of habits which aren’t that good for you. One of my favourite things to do when I’m not working is also enjoying a few drinks, especially at the weekend. Being the first time in my working life that I had so much time on my hands and, not a lot to do, I did what everyone else did and enjoyed two months of overeating and heavy drinking. I was overdoing it, but hey what else was there to do.

One good thing which came from lockdown was the time spent at home with my family. We would enjoy long walks most days and spent time in the garden and having tea outdoors. It’s easy to fall into the trap of being lazy. We are creatures of habit, and so the more time I spent lazing around the house, the less I wanted to do anything else. It was time to get some motivation back.

Fitness.

With the gyms shut and without any rigorous exercise, I was feeling unfit and lethargic. I decided to purchase a boxing bag. In any situation, there are always winners and losers. If you were into selling fitness equipment, you were definitely one the winners as boxing equipment was as rare as hen’s teeth. However, I found a boxing bag and fitted it to the ceiling of my garage. I now had my daily workout and no excuses. I’d go for a 3-mile walk in the morning, and then around 1 pm, I’d do an hour in the garage on the boxing bag. I’ve got to say you soon get out of shape and on my first session I was exhausted after 15 minutes. Day by day, I kept up the routine and got back to a decent level of fitness. I kept up the daily walking routine, even walking too and from work every day most days to get an hours worth of exercise. The thing is with training is that once you get back into the habit, you want to keep going. If you create healthy habits, then you are more likely to keep them up in the long run.

Overindulging.

There was a time where I could eat anything I wanted, but those days are way behind me. Over a few weeks without some structure to my diet, I can quickly put on half a stone. Controlling my weight since getting past the age of thirty has needed constant maintenance. Not that I’m fat, but if I let myself go and didn’t make conscious decisions at 6’7″ I’d be touching on 20 stone. Usually, when I was working throughout the week my breakfast consists of x2 boiled eggs; I’ll have some fruit around 10 am then at dinner time (lunch to you posh lot) I’ll have a chicken or prawn salad. Tea is usually fish or meat with vegetables and with a small portion of rice or similar. I keep this routine up throughout the week and eat what I like at the weekends, which seems to work for me.

Over lockdown, I got into the habit of eating fry-ups and bacon butties for breakfast and frequently eating rich carbohydrate foods which decreases the ability to burn fats. Eating junk food over time creates the urge to eat more junk food. Your body will crave the junk food like a drug, and when you stop, you’ll get feelings of withdrawal; it’s a vicious circle. So the best way to break the cycle is to stop eating junk food for a few days. After a few days of clean eating, the urges will get less helping you get back to eating more healthier foods.

Healthy eating is part of a routine just as is work and exercising. If you have got time on your hands, you tend to let your routine slip. To be healthy, you need to keep your mind and body active. When do you want to eat junk food the most? Probably when you are at your least active, maybe sitting on the couch watching a movie?

Once I got my fitness regime back on track, I decided to get back into a proper eating routine, and within four weeks, I was back to my ideal weight just under 16 stone.  

Read some books.

From a young age, I didn’t particularly appreciate reading. I remember a very nice teacher that I had in primary school who spent time with me and gave me easier books to read because he knew I struggled reading. I don’t think I had learning problems or anything like that it more to do with having little to no attention span, well, no attention span to reading. He’d give me this little cowboy books to take home and read at night which I did under duress, but I read them because I liked the guy.

In 2019 I estimated that I’d read 32 books. I planned in 2020 to read 52 books, one per week. Now for someone at a young age who had problems with reading, this is some going. With all the worries at the beginning of the year, I’d lost my way. I read only probably a handful. I was feeling low and depressed, and I couldn’t even be bothered reading a book.

I’m writing this down and shaking my head like WTF? I made a point to stop feeling sorry for myself and started reading some more books—decent books which uplift you and make you feel better. If you’re not into reading well, you should take it up. I’ve learnt so much from reading books that I wish I’d started reading when I was a child. I read a wide range of books, mostly business-related and autobiographies. When I was in my 20’s, I’d mostly read fiction, Stephen King and books for entertainment purposes. Now I’m older; I read books that are important to me, books that inspire you to do better. Books that make you want to achieve more extraordinary things and set higher targets. If you don’t like reading, I urge you to try it. Buy a book about something you are interested in and sit down and read it. You’ll get much more reward from learning something new than watching the TV.

I probably won’t hit the intended 52 books this year, but there’s still time.

Back to work.

By May work was becoming to trickle in and I’d been doing a few hours every day in the office working on the new Banner World website. We’d started the rebranding process in January, and the lockdown gave us much needed time to expedite the new launch. Having extra free time enabled us to develop the website and scrutinise the user experience. Examining how users interact with a website is very valuable. From studying data, you can see where and when users drop off, and you can build a picture of what’s working and what isn’t. Making frequent small changes can make a huge impact and makes the buying process for the clients easier, which creates a better experience.

In June, our workload started to increase. Even though 2020 has been very tough, we were resourceful enough to see that bars would be opening soon, so we invested in sourcing some more outdoor seating area barriers. As bars getting ready to reopen, they needed to put things in place to section off areas. Cafe barriers are the perfect solution for segregating outdoor and indoor areas. If you don’t, know what cafe barriers are next time you are sat outside in Costa Coffe check out the freestanding railings that separate you from the pavement with banners in the middle. We did some excellent business supplying bars and cafes with these types of systems throughout late summer. We also found that there was a demand for Covid related signage and banners which we quickly added to the range.

What’s happening now?

Well, it’s Mid November 2020. If anything 2020 has been a nice break, spending more time with loved ones and even write a few more blogs like this one. In all honesty, we’ve had a better year than we thought we’d have. Considering the lockdowns and our times of inactivity, we’ve kept going and are keeping positive. We’re certainly not breaking any records but are keeping our heads above the waterline. Anything non-essential we’ve cut back on most probably until the new year maybe even later.

What’s the outlook?

2020 is a year we’ve grown to accept, and I’ve concluded that there’s no point in worrying about something that you cannot change or have no control over. It’s like trying to change the weather if it’s raining tomorrow you have to deal with it when it comes. The recent news of the new vaccine which will hopefully be rolling out very soon is very positive, meaning there’s light at the end of the tunnel. The vaccine is essential for us to get back to normality, especially for the old and vulnerable. I’m sure that once the vaccine becomes available, then circumstances will start to return to normal. It might take a while, and I believe that the next 12 months will be rocky. What we need is for hospitality, event and travel sectors to get back open. I think once these reopen, we will be close to getting back to some sort of normality.

Summary.

2020 is the year that most will want to forget, I know I do. We’ve all had to make changes to get through and support our medical system. And some of these changes that we have made have come at a cost to some. Whether it emotionally, financially, most of us have suffered, and I think the hardest part of the whole situation is the inability to see loved ones and friends. My heart goes out to families of victims who have succumbed to this horrible Virus. We need to congratulate all the medical staff who been there working throughout in these extreme conditions, working harder than ever to keep our NHS going. 

I feel deeply sorry for those that have had their businesses and livelihoods ruined. So many individuals and companies rely on one sector as a revenue stream like event planners and individuals working in the wedding industry. Tourism and travel and those in hospitality have had their businesses decimated. Let’s hope that the coming months we can repair the damage and come through the other side much stronger from experience.

Creating an action plan on this size and scale takes some doing. Whichever political party you support, something on this size and scale has never happened to any government before; well not in my lifetime. It’s challenging to plan the outcome without any data. You can only create a solution from an understanding of the problem. So when something happens for the first time, you have no results. What we have seen is a government who yes at times have looked uncertain about many things. But why have they been uncertain? Why, well I think its quite clear. Its never happened before. We’ve all tried something new. The first time we try something new, we make mistakes, its human nature. Over time you become better at performing that particular task and make fewer mistakes. You only get good with practice and learning from your errors. This government has been learning from the start of this crisis, learning, collecting data & changing things on the fly. You can only create a solution from a result, and when something happens for the first time, you have to collect answer process them and make adjustments. Running a business is not too dissimilar. You collect data, then review and complete the relevant changes to make the process better. If you make a bad call, then you don’t make the same call twice. I expect things should eventually return to normal, but the million-dollar question is, When?

As a nation, we are adapting and evolving and slowly piecing our lives back together. Fingers crossed in less than 12 months we look back on the year twenty-twenty, with a grimace, but hopefully, we’ll be sitting on a beach somewhere sipping a cocktail enjoying the view.