How to See a Silver Lining and Grow Your Business During a Crisis

February 04, 2021 | 4 minute read

Pain is a necessary part of growth when you’re the CEO of a big company. That pain is inevitable, but finding strategies to deal with the pain and struggle is what leads to success.

Grant Findlay-Shirras is the CEO of Parkbench, a platform that connects business owners, real estate agents, and residents so they can form online communities and support local businesses. Parkbench is a successful and beloved service, but like any business success story there have been plenty of red lights on the journey - and seasoned entrepreneur Grant knows these red lights are the signs that you’re levelling up.

Discover How You Can Grow Your Business by Changing Your Mindset

In episode 13 of the Company Growth Podcast, you’ll hear Grant’s story of struggle, from a former employee’s fraud against the company, to a sales team that left Parkbench in bad blood right before a global pandemic, to revenue sinking for the company by 80%. Any one of these red lights might have caused a different business owner to cut their losses and abandon ship. But Grant and his partner Amanda have used their amazing ability to see the silver lining in any situation to come back from struggle and grow back stronger, with greater profit than ever before.

One key to Grant’s optimism and success is looking for role models from outside the business world as well as from within.

Why Salespeople Could Stand to Be More Like Matthew McConaughey

Grant is a big fan of McConaughey’s new book, Greenlights, and thinks that salespeople could use a little more McConaughey-ness in their approach. Normally, many businesspeople, Grant included, naturally look to other business leaders for inspiration. But sometimes that inspiration and that optimism comes from a thought leader in a completely different occupation.

The lesson: look for inspiration that speaks to you and helps you through your business growing pains, wherever that source comes from.

How to Grow From Failures and Roadblocks in Business and in Life

One theme that is key to Grant’s success as an entrepreneur is learning how to grow from upsets, and find the positives in them. You’re going to face struggles and unpleasant disruptions to your business. The difference between a successful entrepreneur and an unsuccessful one is the way you deal with the inevitable problems that arise. Once you accept that problems and headaches are going to happen to any company, you can stop wondering “Why is this disaster happening to me?” and start thinking, “How can I turn this negative event into a positive?”

Listen to Episode 13 of the Company Growth Podcast to learn Grant’s philosophy of dealing with almost every painful problem a company could come up against, and how to grow your business and end up on top.

Stream Episode 13 and learn:

How to change perspective so you see life events not happening to you, but for you.
How to get out of a hole where your business is losing 80% in revenue and come back to make record profits.
How you can expand the talent pool you hire from instantly.
And more!