Sascha Carrez: Why you shouldn’t listen to your gut!
By Sascha Carrez | Indalo Farma
I recently made the decision to reduce cooking services in Belgium, to focus more on the expansion of Indalo Farma.
Since we started the company in 2015, all expenses from rent to payroll were covered by our cooking services. It gave us the room to invest in our brand, Indalo Farma. Then Covid-19 came, with the worst timing that we could have imagined, just before our harvesting season.
When the pandemic hit, it felt like the safest thing an entrepreneur could do was to stay put and wait until it disappeared. But what exactly would I be waiting for? There is no magical moment when any business is perfectly safe. While the fear in your gut can be a source of protection, it can also put you at risk, by holding you back.
“The fight-or-flight response can stop you from making choices that get your business killed”
We dived initially headfirst into the unknown future, because 95% of our customers (cocktail bars, restaurants, health food stores, no waste shops) had to close their doors in less than 24 hours. Immediately, we were faced with a storm of cancelled orders, services and new projects that we were going to guide through their start-up phase.
We quickly realized that this was going to take much longer than several governments proclaimed. As you can imagine, this brings a lot of pressure and uncertainties.
With all of the uncertainties, hiring new team members seemed like a huge risk. Other leaders in my field were furloughing or firing employees, tightening their belts, and not making any big moves, so shouldn’t I do the same?
“My gut was practically shouting at me to hold tight and put my plans for Indalo Farma on hold.”
We didn’t freeze in our tracks, we seized every opportunity to make new contacts with companies in Slovakia to sell products and services and strengthen our existing contacts. This was crucial to achieve a better outcome. It has taught me technological skills which I wouldn’t have believed I would be able to learn.
We were so focused on the sales part of the business that suddenly I realized we would be shorthanded in our wild harvesting season. I saw this as an ideal opportunity for me to contribute to the manual work, and I have continued doing this to this day. It has brought positive effects, as I now have a better insight into the harvesting, and drying of the wild herbs and flowers, and we were able to harvest 18% more than in 2019.
This growth, took away the uncertainty, and catapulted the morale and group spirit of the staff and myself to an incredible height.
In the meantime, we didn’t waste time and energy by flailing around. We have spent a lot of time thinking about where we want to be and growth areas for Indalo Farma after Covid-19.
So we thought over all our collaborations with suppliers and customers, and this led us to ending or not prolonging some bad and/or toxic cooperations!
I strongly believe that by doing this we will grow stronger and will be ready to come out of the pandemic with even better cooperations and lasting innovative products.
The second and third point in the action plan we drew up, was to invest in a bigger online presence and in social channels (Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn) and in a facilities upgrade with the limited budget that was available at that time.
We have also upgraded our herbal tea labels so that the quality of what is inside the packaging is reflected on the outside.
Because we went through all these steps and have taken appropriate measures, we have been able to achieve the unthinkable - a strong 3rd & 4th quarter in 2020.
2020 in short:
No cooking services for 7 out of 12 months
-26 % overall turnover decrease
95% turnover increase with Indalo Farma
We close 2020 breakeven
We were able to close 2020 with our head held high full of motivation, after this challenging year.
If I look at what we did up to this day, I realise that my gut instinct was telling me to keep it safe, but I had to take into consideration future opportunities I could miss, and the dreams I wouldn’t be able to bring to fruition.
So, if you want to discover the big things life has in store for you, you need to stop listening to your gut and take a leap forward instead.