Survival instinct at full throttle as bills stack up

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/04/2020 (2152 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Like many other business owners these days, David Le does not know what the future holds.

Le, an entrepreneur who immigrated to Canada a few years ago, opened a small co-working space late last year after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to renovate a West End building.

He started taking in tenants in November and thought he had a solid business proposition until everything came to a grinding halt in mid-March.

As is the case with most small business owners, he’s more pre-occupied with trying to figure out how to access federal government support programs than he is imagining what the lay of the land will look like when the coronavirus crisis is over.

It so happens, that he is one of those who fell through the cracks of the first and second versions of Ottawa’s support package. He is hopeful that the latest iteration introduced by the prime minister on Wednesday will let him receive some financial support.

“Right now, I’m not eligible for anything,’ he said.

Many of his co-working tenants can’t pay rent but his overhead has not changed. He can’t cancel his insurance, security, Internet or other building costs and he’s anxious about funding those fixed costs.

Meanwhile, many of his tenants’ businesses have been so affected that they can’t pay their rent.

“I need that government support so I can help my tenants, or I need my tenants to get support so they can pay their rent,’ he said.

Those are the kind of things occupying the minds of most small business owners these days.

Chuck Davidson, the CEO of the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce, said it is too early for most businesses to strategize about how to re-launch.

“We’re simply trying to get our businesses the information they need so they can have some comfort that they are going to be around in two to three months when things potentially change,” he said. “It’s too early to talk about how to start up again. That’s the sense we get.”

Davidson’s organization is part of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s newly launched Canadian Business Resilience Network. It is looking to become the clearinghouse that will provide businesses tools to withstand pandemic.

Its stated goal is “to help businesses emerge from this crisis and drive Canada’s economic recovery.”

Winnipeg-based Canada Life is partnering with the Canadian chamber in this initiative.

Jeff Macoun, president and chief operating officer for Canada, at Canada Life, said, “We know small and medium-sized businesses are facing challenges right now and we at Canada Life are committed to support them any way we can.”

Not to say large corporate entities are not also up against an unprecedented disruption to the status quo, but as Macoun said, “At Canada Life, we believe that small and medium-sized businesses are an integral part of the Canadian economy. As they go, so goes Canada.”

While many businesses must figure out how to survive before they spend time on their strategy for the future, there is a lot at stake.

At World Trade Centre Winnipeg, Mariette Mulaire is hosting a podcast with small businesses about how they are coping.

“We can’t end up after this with just Sobeys, Amazon and Costco,” she said. “We have to do anything we can do right now to help those small companies in the community. We have to think about what will happen next or all our favourite neighbour businesses are going to be in trouble.”

A couple of young Winnipeg business people are trying to think about opportunities for innovation that the massive economic stall might create.

Joshua Zaporzan of Audax Ventures Inc. and Grant White of Endeavour Wealth Management have teamed up to form a consultancy called Warp Venture. They plan to work as agents for the kind of change that is undoubtedly ahead of us.

“Right now is a great opportunity for so many people who are at home in isolation who are all asking themselves the same question, ‘What is going to happen next,’” Zaporzan said.

“It becomes a great time for entrepreneurs to step up and be leaders and create innovative, positive change for what that next chapter will look like.”

Like Le, there are a lot of small businesses who were left high and dry by the shutdown and desperately need to be able to survive until there is a return to normalcy. But chances are the new normal is going to look different and it will come with new opportunities that businesses will need to be able to take advantage of.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca