Many Hawke’s Bay business owners under ‘severe stress’: Business leader

Napier's main shopping strip, Emerson St, and (inset) business mentor Janiene Bayliss. Photo / NZME

Many Hawke’s Bay business owners are under “severe stress” and facing difficult decisions about the future of their companies, a business leader and mentor says.

However, she said there is help available for owners as they face a “perfect storm” of a tough economic climate combined with lasting impacts of floods such as Cyclone Gabrielle.

Janiene Bayliss lives just outside Napier and has been a business mentor for the past decade.

She has mentored 30 businesses in Central Otago and, more recently, in Hawke’s Bay after moving north in 2020.

She is a winery owner and previously enjoyed a successful corporate career in the United Kingdom.

Bayliss was this month recognised for her contribution to helping New Zealand businesses, receiving an award from Business Mentors NZ.

Speaking to Hawke’s Bay Today, she said it was extremely difficult at present.

“Post flood and everything that has happened in this area, you have the perfect storm of the flood and then the economic crisis.

“And anybody in retail, or anybody in a small business here, they are under severe stress. Incredible stress.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen people working as hard for such little return.

“It’s very, very difficult out there.

“And in most cases people lose their confidence.

“They are hard on themselves, and they think there is something that they are not doing right, and in a lot of cases you have just got to hang in there because you have got to see if this economy is going to come right.”

She said it was important not to be too hard on yourself, given the challenges businesses were facing.

She offered two pieces of advice.

“If you can afford to, hang in there and see if it is going to come right,” she said, of the economy lifting again.

“If you can’t afford to, there is a bigger decision to make and that is a tough one, because that is tied up with failure and all the other sorts of things that you might have to go through.

“So there are some very tough decisions people are being confronted with.”

Bayliss - who volunteers for Business Mentors NZ - encouraged business owners to seek help, such as becoming a member of Business Mentors NZ. That costs $295 and involves a mentor being assigned to your business.

“It’s not holding hands and I’m just somebody to talk to,” she said, of her role as a mentor.

“You have actually got to understand what this business is doing, where is their ambition to grow, what skill set do they have, and where can they develop - [and] what are they missing or where do they need help?”

She said she often met with owners once or twice a month and helped develop a plan, for a wide variety of businesses.

“While it is hard we have had such wonderful successes.

“People are talented, and running really interesting businesses, and working hard.”

Bayliss owns Ata Mara winery in Cromwell with her husband, David Pratt, and previously founded the Women in Wine organisation.

Business Mentors NZ chief executive Sarah Trotman said “we are so grateful to have had Janiene as one of our 1500-plus business mentors”.

She was awarded with a pin of recognition this month.