Every small-business owner eventually draws the card nobody wants. Sales drop for a month. A machine breaks. A good customer pays late. The landlord sends a letter about the rent. None of these is rare. Over a few years, an owner should expect all of them.
In Open for Business: The Main Street Game, GSU's free board game, those moments arrive as surprise cards. Sixteen of them are shuffled into the deck, and four spaces on Main Street send a player to draw one. Here is what several of them teach and what a real owner can do about each.
The slow month
The card: Fewer customers came in. Next month's sales drop 30 percent.
The lesson: Sales go up and down. Keep cash on hand for the slow months.
In the game, a shop's sales already swing between 60 and 120 percent of a normal month. Add a 30 percent drop on top, and a shop with high rent and payroll can lose money that month. The protection is simple and unglamorous: a cash cushion large enough to cover your fixed costs through a bad month or two.
The broken machine
The card: A machine stops working. Pay $300 to fix it.
The lesson: Set money aside for repairs before you need it.
Equipment always breaks eventually. Owners who set aside a small amount every month for repairs treat a breakdown as an expense. Owners who do not treat it as an emergency.
The late payer
The card: A customer owes you $200 and pays next month instead. Next month's cash comes in $200 short.
The lesson: A sale is not cash until the money is in your hand. This is the difference between profit and cash flow.
This card catches many players off guard, because their profit looks fine while their cash falls short. Real owners protect themselves by asking for deposits, sending invoices promptly and knowing which customers pay slowly.
The rent increase
The card: Each shop you lease now costs $50 more every month.
The lesson: Read your lease. Know when the rent can go up.
A rent increase lasts for the rest of the game, which is exactly why it hurts. Before signing a real lease, know how long the rent is fixed and how much it can rise.
Bad luck is the card. Being ready for it is the skill.
The good cards, too
Not every surprise is bad news. A five-star review raises next month's sales by 20 percent. A street festival pays $100 for every shop you own. Word of mouth earns $200. A big catering order is a windfall for food shops. And one card, Train Your Team, costs $150 now and earns $250 more next month, a small lesson in investing in people.
The good cards teach a lesson of their own: do not build your plan on them. One large customer can make your month, as the catering card warns, but a business that depends on one customer is fragile.
Three questions to ask after the game
Take the lesson further.
The free twelve-lesson course From Risk to Reward covers these ideas in depth, including Cash Is Oxygen and The Price of Value. To test your own plan against a thousand possible years, try the free Owner's Forecast on the Entrepreneurship hub.
Global Sovereign University is a tuition-free 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Play Open for Business and see which surprise card tests you first.
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