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Use these surefire strategies to
immediately recession-proof your business and you'll not
only weather the recession, but you'll come out on top
of your competitors when the economic tide reverses.
Diversify
In a weak economy, diversification may be your business'
best friend. The more services you can offer, the more
clients you will be able to find. For example, if you
primarily create business plans or marketing collateral
for big name clients, you could expand your services to
include press releases, sales letters, web content, or
other business-related products and services. And you
can diversify even further by repackaging your product
and selling it to a different clientele. For example,
you could host a seminar or workshop on writing business
plans. Each person who attends may not be able to pay
your normal fee, but combined not only may you earn
more, you could also score a few new clients. No matter
what service you offer, with a little innovative
thinking you should be able to develop several "new"
offers. All of which will help keep you ahead while your
niche-focused competitors bite the dust.
Offer Outstanding Customer Service
Once you've started attracting customers, you'll have to
worry about retaining them, and in a stagnating economy
that may be even more difficult. You must provide not
only a high quality product, but also exceptional
customer service. When money's tight, clients expect
more for their dollar. If you want to keep their
business, you must keep them happy. Refine your customer
service strategy to insure that every step from taking
the order to delivering the product is client-focused
and effective. You may want to conduct a customer
satisfaction survey or two in order to make sure your
customers' needs are being met. Also consider making
your service more valuable to clients with faster
delivery times, wider selections, or more flexible
payment terms.
Intensify Marketing
One of the biggest mistakes business owners make during
periods of economic slowdown is to cut back on marketing
and advertising, doing this could be most detrimental to
your business. Instead, your marketing needs to be more
aggressive and more comprehensive than ever. Start by
contacting past clients and simply touching base.
Chances are a good number of them will have projects or
assignments for which your services may be required
Offer discounts, freebies, or other extras as
incentives. You may also want to set up a referral
reward program for clients as part of your marketing
efforts. You also need to re-evaluate your current
marketing methods. If you are not seeing some increase
in sales from every dollar you spend on promotions, then
you are wasting valuable revenue. Whether you use
billboard ads, direct mailings, or the yellow pages now
is the time to make sure your current marketing is
cost-effective and efficient. I am often haunted by P.T.
Barnum's stark reminder: "Without promotion, something
terrible happens - NOTHING!"
Position Yourself to be a Market Leader
Are you content to follow the herd? Step outside of your
comfort zone and dare to lead than to follow. Set
yourself apart from the competition by developing your
own USP-Unique Selling Position sometimes also referred
to as ESA (Essential Selling Advantage). What is your USP? It doesn't really matter 'what' your USP is as much
as it matters that you have one. Prospective customers
MUST have a good reason to do business with you rather
than your competition. It could be your superior
customer service, your lifetime refund policy, best
prices or the outstanding quality of your products. You
have absolutely no reason to worry about the economic
slowdown or competition once your customers 'experience'
your USP. In fact, you can use your USP to ruthlessly
eliminate your competitors.
Adopt Cutting edge Technologies
One of the best ways to stay ahead of your competitors
is by keeping up with current technology. So if you
aren't familiar with customer relation management
software or even e-mail marketing, now is the time to do
so. You can put your business online, advertise with
well-placed banner ads, send out information to
potential clients via e-mail, outsource some of your
administrative duties, manage your payroll, or establish
an affiliate program all on the Internet. Current
technology can help your company run more efficiently
and more cost effectively, plus it can open access to
clients in the next city, in another state, or even
enable you to compete in the global marketplace. You'll
have the potential to contact millions of people who
would otherwise have never heard of you or your product
and in a slow economy you need all the exposure you can
get.
Stay Focused
Nothing will damage your business more than business
myopia or short sightedness. In order to stay
successful, you must always keep an eye on your
long-term goals and objectives. You will hit rough spots
but do not get bogged down in the present. Do not make
this mistake. Instead keep your eyes on your target.
Stay focused. Every decision, every cutback, every
improvement you make now must be beneficial not only in
the present but more importantly in the future. Think
about this before you slash prices, fire employees, cut
overhead, or lower your standards.
Seek New Ways to Improve
If you are like most people, you are content with the
status quo until something disturbs it. You should be
constantly re-evaluating not just your marketing plan,
but all of your business strategies including policies,
pricing, and employee performance. The idea is to
eventually be as efficient and effective as possible so
your company runs smoothly and profitably. Look closely
at your competitors. Talk to business leaders you
respect. Read business management books.
Experiment
Solicit feedback from your workers and customers. By
doing several of these things you will accumulate a
wealth of knowledge and experience crucial to the
survival of your business.
Analysis
To know where your business is heading you have to know
where it is TODAY. You should make every effort to
analyze its current status based on several financial
periods to establish a trend. There are hundreds of
tools on this site and thousands more on the Internet to
do this.
Summary
As you read this tens of thousands of businesses across
the country are headed for extinction. Use these
recession-proof strategies immediately and you are
guaranteed to see assets where others see liabilities,
opportunity where others see failure, and extra profits
where others see financial losses.
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