In our two earlier articles on building financial resilience, we examined how advisors can support their clients in managing cash flow and cost control during unpredictable times. However, what happens when businesses are forced to halt growth entirely due to operational pressures caused by economic uncertainty?
With the volatile economic climate, what was once framed as a growth opportunity is now considered a risk. Concerns raised by business owners include:
- "We've gone from planning for growth to planning to survive."
- "Interest rates? Recession? Hold off on expansion plans?"
- "How can we move the needle with revenue growth?"
As tariff growth and macroeconomic pressures alter business behaviour, this third article in our ‘Building financial resilience’ series will examine how you can communicate effectively and assist clients to preserve profit and retain customers.
Growth is no longer the goal—survival is
Growth once signalled health and ambition. However, due to rising interest rates, declining demand, and shifting international tariffs, growth can be a calculated risk and, for some businesses, a potential liability.
Our recent global survey of over 200 advisors noted a notable change in client sentiment: companies are more concerned with long-term, sustainable profitability than rapid revenue growth.
When asked about their current outlook:
- Many clients are postponing significant investments
- Expansion plans are being re-evaluated or shelved entirely
- Risk tolerance is at its lowest in years
Caution is being driven by a broader sense of unpredictability rather than just the impact of tariff growth. With market shifts happening faster than planning cycles can accommodate, businesses focus inward on resilience, not reach.
What you can do to support businesses
As economic uncertainty persists, advisors and accountants must play a bigger role as strategic partners and guide clients towards a practical roadmap centred on survival and long-term stability.
Whether responding to tariff growth impact or navigating tighter operating margins, here's how you can guide clients through key financial pivots:
- Stress-testing growth plans with scenario modelling
"Should I wait to expand until things are more stable?" is a question that clients are asking more frequently than ever. You can help answer that question by stress-testing growth strategies against multiple scenarios, modelling how different tariff or interest rate environments could impact future performance.
With Fathom's sophisticated forecasting and scenario planning tools, you can rapidly create best- and worst-case models, map break-even margins, and assess financial sustainability under various assumptions. This degree of forward-thinking insight allows business owners to take a moment to reflect before making costly, irreversible decisions.
- Promoting leaner, more focused operations
Instead of pursuing aggressive expansion, you can encourage clients to return to the core business functions by focusing on operational efficiency, cost management and profitability.
That includes:
- Cutting non-essential spending
- Postponing speculative hiring
- Doubling down on core services or high-margin product lines
Fathom supports this lean operating model by helping you and your client track customised KPIs, visualise business performance, and benchmark against historical trends. Through simple and beautiful financial reporting, you can move past mind-numbing spreadsheets and make cost-control discussions more engaging for business owners to act on.
- Building retention-centric strategies
Retention becomes the most dependable revenue lever as the acquisition of new customers slows down. You can help business owners to focus on keeping their existing customers happy and engaged by:
- Refining pricing models
- Enhancing service experiences
- Analysing customer behaviours and profitability
Consider supplementing your financial data with customised non-financial KPI metrics, which can help measure customer behaviours and leading business indicators. This makes it simpler to clearly identify loyal customer segments, spot new issues, and help clients prioritise their most valuable relationships.
And when it's time to present insights to clients or internal teams, Fathom allows you to show business results through beautiful reports that turn complex data into meaningful, actionable insight.
Communicating effectively during critical times
When growth stalls, business owners require more than just numbers. They need direction on understanding those figures and confidently communicating those numbers with their employees, customers, and investors.
And as advisors and accountants, you can add real strategic value by pairing strong financial insight with smart messaging.
Best practices in stakeholder messaging
- Be transparent: To foster trust, communicate clearly how tariffs affect your clients' cost base. This entails outlining the consequences for delivery schedules, supply chain delays, and pricing structures.
- Educate proactively: Clear, informative, and proactive messaging for tariff communication can help retain clients. You should help stakeholders by explaining what's changing and why, while offering constructive options or solutions to ease the impact.
- Reassure internally: Firms may become uneasy due to delayed hiring, halted growth, or changed priorities. To reinforce operational stability and build trust, assure clients by presenting data-driven insights.
- Frame messages with purpose: Positive messaging matters. To increase stakeholder confidence during tumultuous times, prioritise long-term vision, flexibility, and financial stability.
By helping businesses prepare for challenging conversations and decisions, you can position clients not as reactive operators but as proactive, confident leaders navigating turbulence with control and foresight.
Enabling growth when the time is right with Fathom
While the current climate calls for caution, it doesn't mean growth has to stop. It simply means it must be smarter, leaner, and supported by data. When business conditions improve, you will play an essential role in helping clients re-enter growth mode responsibly.
Key areas where advisors can add value include:
- Analysing market risks, particularly tariff exposure and its cost impact on operations
- Identifying low-capital growth opportunities such as digital expansion, strategic partnerships, or scalable services
- Adapting operating models to be more flexible in the face of global supply chain disruptions and economic shocks
Fathom is built to support this. With our intuitive platform, which includes cash flow forecasting and scenario modelling, you can help clients understand what needs to happen to meet their goals, build stronger business cases, and reduce guesswork in planning.
Whether tracking profitability, managing performance KPIs, or advising on resilience strategies, Fathom helps you confidently deliver clear, impactful insight.
Final thoughts
Even though growth may be paused, building financial resilience remains a top priority. Measures like proactive stakeholder messaging, simplifying financial insights, and scenario-based forecasting, are more than crisis tactics. These strategies can address immediate impacts and provide the foundation for long-term resilience.
At the end of the day, it's not just about the numbers. It's about how clearly and confidently you can communicate and empower your clients to move forward, even when the path ahead is uncertain.
Try it for yourself
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