Dealing
With Business Slowdowns
By
Vishal P. Rao
When
times are slow for your home-based business, chances are you won't
have the luxury of waiting and seeing if things improve. You'll
need to take steps quickly to get back on track.
These
suggestions will help you get business back to normal:
1)
Add Products And Services
During
slow times, your very instinct might be to cut corners, but in the
case of your catalog of products and services this could spell disaster.
Instead, you want to select additions carefully based on the needs
and desires of your clients.
Think
of it this way: let's say you provide web design services. Your
client hires you for the design work, then goes elsewhere to get
a logo, hosting, and content. Having to hire four different companies
just to complete one project is not cost-effective or time-efficient
for your client.
So
what if you could offer web design and hosting or web design and
everything else necessary as well? Chances are you'd have a definite
advantage over your competition.
Even
if you don't have the skills or ability to handle those aspects
of the project, you could team up with other companies like yourself
who also want to boost business and give themselves a competitive
edge.
No
matter what product or service you primarily provide, you could
find ways to provide additional necessities to your clients.
2)
Step Up Customer Service
Hopefully,
you already provide good service and support to your customers,
and you are probably already aware of how critical this is to your
business's success. But when times get rough, customer service is
even more crucial and you need to go beyond the call of duty to
convince clients that their business is important to you.
For
example, you may want to guarantee responses within a few hours,
instead of a few days. You may want to follow up with thank you
cards or phone calls. If a problem does arise, act immediately to
take care of it and rectify the situation to the client's satisfaction.
Remember
not only is that customer's business at stake, but also the potential
business of every single person he or she is acquainted with.
Business
is slow; budgets are tight. So what usually gets trimmed first?
Marketing. Do you know what the results are? Disaster!
When
you conduct marketing, you are not selling yourself to generate
business today or even tomorrow. Marketing is an investment in your
business's future. In fact, research has shown that most marketing
efforts don't pay off for at least six months.
So
think about that. Let's say you cut back on marketing in June and
you weather the economic down cycle, what's going to happen in December?
Absolutely nothing! Because all of your potential clients have been
won over by the marketing efforts of your competition which were
conducted during the summer.
Instead
of cutting back, a slow down is the time to boost marketing. Get
back in touch with past clients, attend seminars, pass out fliers.
After all, if work is slow, what else are you going to be spending
your time doing?
4)
Keep A Positive Attitude
Times
are hard. Your nerves are on edge. You're feeling the pressure.
When a past client calls to ask how things are going, do you tell
them the truth and hope they take pity on you? Do you wallow in
a self-defeating attitude? NO!
If
you want to get through the hard times, you have to keep in mind
two things:
A)
No one is going to do business with a failing company and
B)
Hard times are only temporary.
Let's
think about this. If you called up a company about business and
the representative says, "It will be great to be finally getting
some new clients" or "Things have been horribly slow around
here lately" are you going to trust them with your project?
No.
The
first thing you are going to be wondering is why they haven't been
doing well. And that's what your potential clients will wonder about
you as well.
So
how do you keep from breaking down on the phone with your clients?
By remembering that business is a cycle and just as things are bad
now, they will turn around and you will be doing well again. The
only thing permanent is giving up.
5)
Branch Out
When
things are slow with your business, you can take the opportunity
to do all those things you always wanted to do but never had the
time for.
Why
not write some articles or an e-book related to your business, then
sell them or publish them to earn more money and to further establish
your credibility.
Or
take a shot at teaching a class on e-commerce, computers, or a topic
related to your business at a local college, vocational school,
or adult learning center. Even if you don't get paid, the exposure
could do great things for your business.
You
could also start giving speeches, take some business or technology
classes, or take on some part-time work that will give you more
experiences that will help you compete in the market when things
go back to normal.
Although
ups and downs are simply an inevitable part of business, dealing
with them effectively can make the difference between staying afloat
or going under.
Vishal P. Rao is the editor of Home
Based Business Opportunities
A website dedicated to opportunities, ideas and resources for
starting a home based business. He also runs the Work
at Home
Forum - an online community of folks who work at home.
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