Recession-Proofing Your Business

850, Northwest Florida’s hot new business periodical, gives some valuable ideas for sustaining your business during tough economic times.  Highlighting several entrepreneurs that are finding success during an economy that is taking its toll on even the most stable players, the article focuses on methods that work in EVERY market.  The article, “Recession-Proof Ingenuity,” follows five area business owners as they work to build their business using a few tried-and-true techniques, as well as new approaches.  The capstone of the article is this list of no-nonsense hints to help you, too, thrive in difficult times:

Don’t Just Survive, Thrive!:  Tips for Small Business Owners During the Recession

• Ramp up your business development. Visibility, credibility, profitability. Get out there and keep hunting for business.
• Get clear on your niche markets. Don’t just assume because you have a business people will buy from you. You must define the markets you service and get in front of them consistently.
• Form strategic alliances. Who sells complementary products or services to your market? Look for ways to align yourselves to add value to your market.
• Build champions. Champions are people who know what you do, the type of client you service and refer business to you on a regular basis.
• Get creative. Use social media such as blogging and podcasts or social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to build strong networks in exchange only for your time.
• Check your mindset. Are you buying in to the fear or rising above it? There is a lot of low hanging fruit out there if you’re prepared to weather the storm.
• Use measurement tools to manage your business development. Sales funnels and profit models are great to keep you on track to reach your goals.
• Shed dead weight. If you have to let staff go because they don’t fit the business model, or you need to move away from colleagues who are getting dragged in to the ‘doom and gloom,’ do whatever you have to do to surround yourself with positive, opportunistic, hard-working people.
• Systemize all areas of the business that you can. Take all the guess work out of your business development. Use seamless, consistent processes that are measureable.
• Use your financial statements to assess the health of your business. Review them at least once a month.

Tips courtesy Heather White, ghost adviser for Ghost CEO

Sue A. Evans

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