How is the recent economic downturn affecting you/and your business? Is it the same old, same old? Has your business gone down? Are you finding yourself considering changes to save money?
Before you do anything drastic (like lay-off your employees, cut marketing, cancel suppliers, etc) you have to take a look at your past year first.
Where did your business come from? (You DID track that, right?) Were most of your clients Walk-ins? Did they call from Ads? Was first contact made via Internet? Were they referrals? What item/product/service sold the most? What supplier offered not only the best product for the best price, but the best service?
Before doing anything drastic, you have to take a good look at your existing business, because you might inadvertently cancel/cut the one thing that brings you most of your clients/business; i.e. you might cut advertising in certain publications due to price, but those might be the very ones that bring you the most income. So be sure to take all those details into consideration.
Once you’ve made your decisions on how to move forward, review your business plan and adjust it for 2009. Keep an eye on your expenses, treat your customers well, provide a great product and/or service – and have a great year!
Filed under: Business Tips | Tagged: Business Tips, Small Business Owner
Difficult times for sure. It tempting to lay off staff as that’s where big savings can be made. But if your staff are skilled they can be really hard to replace. If the economy makes a recovery, without staff you can’t respond to demand.