Navigating a recession for any individual is difficult, but when you own a business, that can make things even more stressful. Some businesses thrive during recessions, some drop, and others remain the same, but whatever your situation may be, it’s critical to keep moving forward so that your organization stays afloat during these uncertain times.
Check out these tips on how you can ensure the longevity of your business, regardless of what you may face.
Invest in Your Current Relationships
Provide Additional Value to Your Customers
As a business owner, you’ll learn that it’s more important to retain the customers you already have than to acquire new ones. Especially during a recession, it’s crucial that your clients feel supported and believe in the value of your products or services, or else they may feel inclined to cut ties in order to reduce expenses.
How can you provide additional value? Offer resources to them that might fall out of the work you’re currently doing for them, stay in constant contact with them, think about how to send business their way, and more. When you have clients who appreciate all that you do, they’re that much more likely to keep you around!
Reconnect with Your Network
When was the last time you attended a networking event or reconnected with someone from your network for coffee? If it’s been a while, now’s the time to start catching up with your connections, as rekindling with them may give them a nudge to send some business your way.
Reconnecting doesn’t necessarily mean meeting up with them in person, either. It can consist of:
- Showing some love on their social media posts
- Sending them an email or LinkedIn message
- Meeting via Zoom or phone
Be sure to find ways to support your connections as well so that the relationship is mutually beneficial, and then they’ll be that much more likely to refer you to people they know.
Improve Your Marketing, Sales, and Operations
Develop a Well-Rounded, Consistent Marketing Strategy
Has your marketing fallen to the wayside due to business being busy? Marketing is important more than ever during a recession, so take this as your push to start planning and creating content if you’ve been inconsistent. Which avenues should you consider?
- Ramp up your social media presence
- Create an email list if you haven’t yet, or reconnect with your subscribers if you already have a list
- Pitch local publications with exciting news regarding your business
- Focus on SEO and list your business in directories
- Write blog posts related to your expertise
Consistently showing up in front of your audience will keep your business top of mind for them so that when things get a little bit better, your business will be one of the first they come running to.
Focus on New Lead Generation Techniques
Have your leads become stale in the sense that you’re not receiving new inquiries or receiving inquiries that aren’t quite the right fit? Use this time to experiment with your lead generation techniques. That may include:
- Researching ideal clients on LinkedIn and connecting with them
- Sending cold emails
- Running ads
- Testing direct mail
And more. If you don’t ask, the answer is always “no,” so don’t be afraid to get ignored or rejected and welcome new ideas. Getting even one new client in the process makes it worth it!
Finetune Your Operations Processes
If you have extra time on your hands, why not use it as an opportunity to take a deep dive into your business operations and see what you can improve? It’s difficult to focus on internal systems and processes when things are busy, so having extra time on your hands makes it possible for you to analyze how you run things and find ways you can make them even better.
Processes to revamp might entail:
- Onboarding and offboarding employees
- Onboarding and offboarding clients and customers
- Managing clients: contracts, invoices, communications, etc.
- Managing team members and staff
Among other options. You’ll be amazed when you see that just changing one system can save you so much time in the long run!
Pursue Other Income Streams
Offer a Complementary Product or Service
Is there a product or service you don’t currently offer that you could start to bring into your business? It’s critical to be intentional with this and not launch something new just to have a “backup” option but rather be sure that it’s something your customers could greatly benefit from.
Ask yourself these two questions:
- What products or services do clients and leads always inquire about that we don’t offer yet?
- What product or service could we provide that would enhance the value of our current offerings?
Start with a big brain dump as these ideas come to you, and then narrow them down from there. If you’re left with one or two options that could be a great fit, put some feelers out to your current client base to see if it’s something that they might be interested in. You could always consider a “soft launch” and only provide the product or service to a select group of people for a limited amount of time to ensure it would be profitable and worth it before opening it up to everybody.
Venture into a New Business
Have you been thinking about a new business idea but keep pushing it to the side because you haven’t had the time to pursue it further? If it’s a business that could weather a recession, why not look at this as an opportunity to finally make it happen? With more time on your hands and inspiration to take a risk, starting a new business could be your next big break.
If it doesn’t work out, then it doesn’t work out — but wouldn’t you rather try and find out rather than wonder what could’ve happened?
Whether you’re worried about how a recession might affect your business or you feel confident in your endeavors, implementing these tips will ensure success in the long run.