This is the point in the year when a lot of business owners start having some version of an “oh shit” moment:

We all have these moments -- and they don’t feel good. 

So our natural instinct is to get out of the discomfort as fast as possible by fixing what’s “broken.” We like that, right? Being decisive feels fantastic because you’re doing something.

🔎 Read more: Is licensing or franchising right for your business?

Depending on your specific situation, yes, taking timely, decisive action might be the right call. But when you’re uncomfortable, your first idea is often the one that makes the icky feeling stop the fastest. Being reactive, unfortunately, often leaves the real problem unsolved.

So I’m here today to put a speed bump between you and momentarily soothing decisions that might actually make your situation even worse.

Hello, Q2 review. Mine wasn’t so great. I knew we were behind our financial plan, but our quarterly business review (QBR) showed just how far behind we were and what ground we needed to recover. 

We’re still profitable. We just haven’t grown at the rate I expected -- but I also know why. It’s not a problem with how our team is functioning. I had a lot of medical stuff happen during the first half of the year, and I wasn’t able to do the sales activities I needed to do. (Which is why I expanded the team in the first place.) But I’ll be honest -- it’s hard to not go for the largest marketing and people costs first when you miss your goals.

So if you look at your numbers and your first instinct is panic, do not act. Sit on it for a few days while you consider your options. Because that urge of “I need to do something right now” is how a lot of business owners blow up perfectly good teams, only to set back their growth by months or years when they need to take back more day-to-day operations while they look for a replacement. 

🔎 Read more: How much growth is enough growth? (a framework)

Take a beat to determine what problem you actually have. 

For example, are you spending a lot more than you expected to deliver the same product or service? Or are your operating costs okay, but you’ve just had a short-term sales miss that can be made up through some hustle? 

Those require different responses.

If you need help diagnosing where your financial issues might be, read this article. It walks through the process I use with my clients to evaluate cash leaks, pipeline, offers, and the macroeconomic big picture for your business.

As always, the answer is a big ol’ maybe.

I think about this as good debt vs. bad debt. Good debt is generally used toward investments or activities that will generate revenue or growth, or it gets you through what you know is a short-term dip. Bad debt is borrowing for activities that won’t return at least a breakeven amount to you, and instead digs you a bigger financial hole. Bad debt keeps an underlying problem alive without giving you a realistic way to pay the money back.

Hiring for revenue activities is what I would consider good debt. You often have to put the money in before you get the money out. I recently hired someone knowing I would need to cover a shortfall for two or three months before that role could contribute to revenue. 

🔎 Read more: How to take time-off as a business owner (without the guilt)

I could have said, “I need three months’ coverage in the bank before I can hire the person who helps me make the money.” But it would have taken me several months to get there, and I would have been making the operating problem worse in the meantime. Would I have hired her? Probably not. And I’d be stuck in the same problematic place.

Borrowing can also make sense if your pipeline is healthy. You can see the shortfall correcting in the next couple of months, and you need help to get over the hump. Or you have a contract and you need to start working on it, but your payment terms are 60 or 90 days out.

If you decide to borrow, get a real credit line from a credible bank or financial partner. Do not take the loan from the person texting about pre-approved money. Make sure it’s not a merchant cash advance, which often has predatory rates and the underlying right to take your business if you miss a payment.

If this is where you are, my first question to you is: how far off are you?

If this is a situation you can see correcting in six to eight weeks -- you just need a bridge -- don’t blow anything up, just focus on building that bridge. You may be behind on the plan, but that doesn’t automatically mean the plan is wrong. 

It’s different if your business is financially healthy but you just aren’t enjoying it. Maybe your role changed and you expected to feel more fulfilled by it. Maybe you’re doing well but now you hate coming to work every day.

That’s a different conversation. Ask yourself: 

You don’t have to immediately stop everything and start over. You can figure out how to move from one version of the business to another without turning off the revenue.

Then there’s the third possibility: you tried something new this year and the response hasn’t been what you expected. 

This is where you ask yourself: is this the right offer?

It could be pricing or the product itself. It could be the way you are talking about it. It could be the audience or the timing of the market. It could be a lot of things.

🔎 Read more: How to build a values-based business without compromising in the name of growth

Again, our first instinct is often, “This isn’t working, let’s do something else,” when it should be slowing down and getting curious about what’s actually going on.

Keep in mind, when you’re only accountable to  yourself, you don’t have a speed bump in place for those “this sucks, fix it now” urges. So get yourself a speed bump: a strategist, a trusted adviser, or an entrepreneur friend who’s been through it. This minor delay before acting will confirm your thinking is right, or help you get past the discomfort and onto a more constructive path.

Ready to get started? Great, here’s what you do:

Yes, I did just call myself a human speed bump. If you need one, book a free 20-minute strategy session. If you’re wondering what happens in a 20-minute strategy session with me, this article tells you everything you need to know.

Tariffs. At midnight last Friday, about 99% of US imports were hit with replacement tariffs of 10 to 12.5%, under an old law about inadequate protections against use of  forced labor. Your fellow small business owners have already challenged these tariffs in two new lawsuits. The net of it all is expected 11% higher costs on imported goods in the next year, which means prices will remain elevated and you may need to raise yours.

Fed meeting. Around the time you read this, the Fed will issue its decision on whether to hold, increase, or drop interest rates. The prevailing sentiment is rates will hold, but there is some bias toward them being raised to bring inflation under control.

Patchmageddon. Are you getting “update available” notifications every day? Welcome to Patchmaggeddon, a blitz of fixes to software vulnerabilities being discovered daily by AI. JP Morgan Chase’s head of private wealth research and CTO wrote an interesting report about zero day vulnerabilities -- hackers using AI to find and exploit software vulnerabilities within a day of finding them -- and the risks that presents to global money systems. Read the report, watch the embedded video, or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. My takeaways are to fully power down and restart your devices at least once a week, consider turning on background app refresh, and restart desktop and browser-based apps when you get the “update available” message. 

WNBA tea. I’m not going to get into it, iykyk, but the 72-hour StudBudz live stream of the WNBA All-Star game is exactly why we no longer offer unlimited alcohol at trade shows and corporate functions. Maybe Gen Z is drinking less day-to-day, but when they get after it, the results will be livestreamed courtesy of AT&T.

ICYMI, here are resources you should know about:

How do you find new business opportunities in uncertain times? You can’t stop marketing. You can’t stop branding. You can’t stop talking to people. You can’t stop paying attention and just hope that if you wait long enough, some straightforward, easier market conditions will magically fall at your feet. They won’t. What you can do is stay engaged.

How to run a quarterly business review (QBR) that actually works. A quarterly business review for small business is a structured process of comparing your actual financial results (revenue, margins, costs, and net income) against your goals, then adjusting your plan for the next quarter. It takes two to four hours and is your best opportunity to catch problems before they become crises.