Although the UK is out of recession and is well on the way to recovery, businesses - new upstarts and old, well-established companies – are still struggling to keep afloat. Regardless of whether you’re a digital marketing company or a private refuse collector, you may be worried that your company is about to go bust, and if it does, what happens next? Don’t panic though, read this short form and essential guide to the next steps and keep calm.

1 – Is There a Way out?

When you’re facing the stress and panic of a business crumbling around you, it can be difficult to remain focused on trying to source a way out of the mire. However, that is really the best thing you can do to help yourself, your colleagues and the business. Be proactive, engage clients to see whether they’ll renew their contracts, diversify your product offering to attract new business, and even consult experts in your field to see where you can be doing better. All these things on their own aren’t necessarily going to keep your business from collapsing, but in series, they’re a powerful collection of actions that just might do the job.

2 – Get Bought up

If you can’t solve the issues yourself and you can’t find a consultant who can help you, your next option is simply to attempt to get your company bought by a larger one that is having more success than you.  There’s a chance that by taking this approach, you’ll be able to allow some or all of your existing team members to keep their jobs, and potentially to allow your business to retain its own identity, without its people simply being dissolved into the buying company.

3 - Address Your Personal Finances

Finally, you need to take a step back from the business and worrying about everybody else, and think for a second about yourself and those who rely on you, financially speaking. Although it’s nice to think that something will happen to allow your company keep afloat, you need to consider in all seriousness the possibility that nothing will come along to help you. If this is what does happen, you need to have a plan in place to make sure you remain okay. This could mean thinking about insolvency and debt management if you go bankrupt. A company like Gibson Hewitt could help you to collect your thoughts and give you the financial breathing room to carry on.

As you can see, there are a number of things to consider if your company does take a turn for the worse, so follow the action plan above and hope the business gods will save you.