Growing Your Business

Regardless of industry, everyone has felt the economic slowdown of late, whether they are captains of industry or your everyday small business. Do not get discouraged, there are plenty of things you can do to help keep your business viable during the downturn and prepare your business for success during the upturn that is sure to follow.

Discipline as a Foundation

In a recent article from Entrepreneur Magazine, Carol Tice reports that “discipline developed in a downturn can lay the groundwork for long-term success.” Basically, a slowdown in business will often force you to reexamine your business tactics and develop new ways to generate revenue. If these tactics are retained when the market returns your business will often flourish.

Reexamine Your Business Model

Is your business model still viable? Maybe it is, but often as time goes on your business outgrows your original model. Getting a business of the ground can be a challenging task, and once you have successfully launched your business it is easy to allow your plans to become static, especially once you have a steady cash flow. While you are considering new ways to generate revenue, look in to revamping your business model to target unexplored opportunities.

Diversify Your Marketing

When cash flow is an issue, it may be hard to justify spending money on new marketing projects, but when the economy turns down it is imperative that your company’s name remains in front of both your current and potential customers. Remember, a slow economy has everyone looking for ways to cut their spending, so you need to remind your current customers of the value of your product and let potential customers know that their money will be well spent.

In an article titled “Do the Two-Step” written by John Jantsch we can see an innovative marketing technique that may be useful for small businesses trying to diversify their marketing. “…every business needs leads; they’re the lifeblood of your marketing machine.” Jantsch claims that his “two-step” marketing plan can produce new leads without any cold-calling. His plan is fairly simple. Create a free information product, such as a workshop or newsletter, and make it available to your target market. If you direct all of your marketing efforts at signing up customers for your information product, you will be left with a list of prospects who are interested in your company and your product. “…they’re effectively raising their hand and identifying themselves as being interested,” and “the hardest part of [the] sales job is done.”

Stay Positive

Just because the market is down, it does not mean that your business has to be down as well. In fact, Andy Birol of Birol Growth Consulting says that many niches often pull through a downturn completely unscathed. The secret is to find those niches and use them to your advantage. “Don’t assume demand has vaporized,” he says. “It hasn’t, but the way demand is getting met has changed.”

Source

http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2008/august/195590.html

http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2008/august/195720.html