Recession Busting Tips to Help Your Business

What can you do to ensure your business continues to grow during a recession…

Is your customer base at a higher risk than some during a recession?

• Decide whether it’s possible to target different industries to work with that are less affected?
• Find ways to make your goods or services available cheaper to your customers, without affecting your profit margins? For example, if you provide bespoke website design perhaps you can build a series of templates for clients to choose from at a lower price. Or maybe you can offer 3 levels of service so your customers can choose to downgrade until their business picks up.
• If possible find a way of receiving payment in instalments rather than presenting a large bill at the end. That way your customer is more likely to be able to pay you and you won’t have to wait for payment.
• Diversify your service or product offering? Finding extra ways to help your customers during a recession can ensure they don’t move to a cheaper provider and it can help to secure your future working relationship.

Start looking at ways to ensure you retain your profits

• If selling more or increasing prices isn’t an option for your business at the moment then you need to work on cutting your current costs.
• We are all guilty of subscribing to products or services that we never actually use or don’t really need, so start here.
• Look for cheaper service or product providers, that won’t affect the quality of your business.
• No one wants to make redundancies, ever. However, if your business starts to struggle as a result of falling sales and/or rising costs then considering redundancy for certain staff can be a necessity. This is a difficult situation and can take a lot of decisions about the future of your business and current and future cash flows, so get the right advice first.
• If you are a residential property lettings investor with mortgaged properties and not yet operating through a limited company, then you need to consider whether the long-term effects of the high-interest rates and the fall in house prices mean it’s now a good time to incorporate into a limited company.

Marketing your business

 Marketing is important in any economic environment but even more so in times of difficulty.

• Your potential customers may have problems that you can help them to solve. It doesn’t matter how good you are at what you do if you’re not sharing that message.
• Think about who your ideal customers are and where they hang out. Then make yourselves the industry experts that your potential customers decide they really want to work with.
• Most of your audience is not yet ready to buy. The goal of marketing is that when they are ready to buy, your brand is top of their mind.
• Do not sell!! Provide solutions, show your value and let the customers come to you!

For further information and advice on any of the tips listed above then please get in touch with us