Solid Recommendations That Can Help Your Business Prosper
Save your business. What do I do now.
Times are bad. Profits are slipping. The only consolation seems to be that you are not the only one. What can a business owner do?
Yesterday I covered 7 steps that when followed can help turn your business around. They involved taking the problem head on and not just worrying, cutting costs, getting a strategy, keeping in touch with your customers, getting a bigger piece of the pie, helping your clients do more business and being hopeful.
Today I would like to begin to enlarge on these points with concrete suggestions so that a person could get started doing something. Most of us are getting hit over the head sufficiently by the reality of this changed business climate that we no longer have to be convinced that we must do something. And now. You might want to wait it out and see if ‘things get better’ but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Things will get better. This too shall pass. And it will never be quite the same. I am a printer. If I was running my business the same way I did five years ago I would most likely not be in business today. So things have changed and the sooner we accept this and begin taking new steps to build our business now the sooner the recession will be over for us.
If we just wait and see and hope that things will get better when the bigger forces do turn around, we could find ourselves being run over or passed in a cloud of dust by those who got on the move and became part of the force moving things forward, rather than sitting down and waiting.
So next we have to cut cost and expenses. And right now nothing is too sacred. Start with rent. For most businesses rent is a big expense. Approach your landlord and ask for a rent concession. I know of businesses that made a point of paying their rent on time and with each rent check asked for a lowering of rent. One business owner received a 20% reduction! You can’t get it if you don’t ask.
I periodically go through and check the price I am getting for the items I need in my store and shop competing products to see if I can find something that is as good a quality but less expensive. I learned long ago that cheaper can sometimes be more expensive and I try to always find something that does the job better for less money.
Years ago I migrated away from a good working product because there was a substantial price break in a product that did almost as good a job. Money saved. I recently went back to the first manufacturer and requested the current pricing. Their product was within pennies of the one I was using. They had felt the pressure and had lowered their price. Now I have the superior product back for practically the same price.
So go through all those items that you regularly buy, pick out the ones that can make the biggest impact on the bottom line so that you can have some breathing room. Tomorrow I will show you how to invest that money wisely in building your business.
Written by David Walrath
Ajalon Printing & Design
