5 Tips for Business Owners to get through a Recession
The topic of this blog is really important for business owners everywhere at the moment. I'm going to be sharing with you my 5 tips for business owners to get through the recession...
The time of writing this is November 2022. And we have had a hard few years with Brexit in the UK, plus we've had COVID (a global pandemic in case you didn’t know!). And now we are facing the recession…
For those of you that have been through recessions before in your career or in your business, you will know what it's like, and it is challenging.
For some people, this will be the first time they've gone through a recession in their business.
I wanted to give you my five top tips to get through the recession, because it is actually a time when businesses can thrive, businesses can come out the other side of a recession. But in order to do that, they need to have gone into the recession with a really strong foundation.
1. Connect With Your Past And Present Clients
My first tip for surviving the recession, is to connect with your clients. The most important thing you can do when we're about to go into this recession, is make sure that you've got strong connections to your existing clients and your past clients, your past clients have already bought into you before. So assuming you've still got that positive relationship with them, getting in touch with them, could trigger more sales in your business in the future.
Ensure that this is really genuine when you reach out to them and find out how they're doing. Be personal with it. Ask them relevant questions, do your research, look at their social medias, look at what they've been up to, have a look at their website and their latest blog, and engage in conversation with them that's meaningful.
Some questions you could ask them are:-
What are their challenges at the moment?
What goals do you have for the next six months?
By asking questions like this, you'll actually get a much stronger insight into where your clients head's at. And you'll also get a much broader understanding of what's important to them.
Often when we work with clients, we might just work with them in one part of their business. But actually, there's so much more going on across all different areas of their business that you might be able to help them with in the future.
For example, through asking questions, you might learn that they want to launch a new service or a new product. And there may be an opportunity for you to help with that in the future.
I honestly believe that in 2022 and going into 2023 relationships are absolutely key for growing your business. It's all about relationship marketing, being genuine, being yourself and finding those people that are aligned to your values and that you want to work with together.
Finally, on this first point, I want you to think about how you can step up your customer service. Customer service is something that gets ignored often in business, but actually if you can plan to be the best in class in terms of your communication, how you resolve any queries, and how you get back to your clients, you will set yourself apart.
Make customer service, something that is really a priority for you in your business.
2. Lead Generation
My second tip is to create a new lead generator for your business. This might be some hints and tips that you could give to your potential clients in exchange for a free consultation, or their contact details.
This could be you creating a thought piece which has got relevant market perspective and market research. Or this could be a free resource that you develop, that could be a questionnaire or it could be done as a freebie style PDF document.
But create something that you feel really aligned to going into the market that we are in at the moment. Put yourself in the perspective of your ideal client, and think about what would they really value receiving from your expertise? What is the thing that if they read it, if they looked at it, if they used it as a tool in their business now, it would actually genuinely help add value. And then share it as much as you can, use it as a lead generator on your social media.
Reach out directly to potential clients, your past clients, and even existing clients. I really do think when you're creating these resources that you should think about your existing customers, those people that are loyal to you at the moment, and what they would benefit from.
3. Review Your Financial Position
Number 3 is to look at your financial position. I'm a big fan of facing into the numbers, and your finances is something that as business owners, we don't do enough of. I want you to go into this recession feeling really clear on your numbers and where you're at in your business, and be really honest with yourself.
Here’s what you need to be looking at in terms of financials:-
What revenue have you made in the last 6 to 12 months?
What costs do you have in your business?
Then look at your profit, which is your revenue minus your costs.
I also want you to look at your forecast in your business. This is something that not every business would be doing. But again, it will stand you in good stead against your competition if you have done forecasting in your business.
Look at what revenue you can foresee coming through in the next 3 to 6 months. Look at what costs you've got going out and assess what costs you can maybe reduce in your business to increase your profit going forward.
Finally, on the financial side of things. And this is really, really important because I speak to clients that have got outstanding invoices… Make sure you go through your outstanding invoices and chase them in a kind way and make sure you get those paid.
Because the last thing you want is to go into this recession, with many many outstanding invoices and cash that's owed to you, because we need to be focused on cash flow and ensure that you've got that sorted in your business.
4. Review Your Prices And Offers
Number 4 is to review your prices and offers. This one is all about looking at what you are putting out in the market during this recession.
I believe you should stay true to yourself and hold firm on your prices during the recession. And in fact, we've got inflation rates of around 10% at the moment (Autumn 2022). So upping your prices is not a bad thing either.
What I would say is, before you do anything, do your market research. Look at your competitors and look at what offerings they've got in the market, look at what their prices are in the market.
If you can't find that on their websites, do some mystery shopping, which I absolutely love to do. What that means is calling up or sending email inquiries to competitors, and finding out a little bit of information about the pricing and how they work.
It can be a really good way for you to benchmark pricing in your business. It is something that lots of businesses do so don't be afraid of doing it. I've done it in the past and it can be quite fun. You learn some really interesting stuff.
When you're looking at your prices and offers, think about what value you are giving to your clients and think again about your clients mindset in this recession. Consider these questions:-
What is it that they're looking for?
Why would they invest in working with you?
As you're doing this, ask your existing customers for some constructive feedback so that you can build that into your offers for the future.
For example, one of the things that I'm doing in my business at the moment is looking at lower value options, where people can start to work with me at a lower fee.
It is still valuable because those clients could be really strong referrals in the future, they might give me an amazing testimonial, or they might want to work together with me longer term.
Look at how you can structure your business and your offerings in creative ways to open up the chances of working with your ideal client.
Depending where you're at in your business, you might have multiple prices depending on the service or client. But I would always recommend keeping things simple and really get into the zone of your customers mindset.
Don't be afraid of sharing your draft offers that you're developing with potential customers to get some insights and some feedback, or even your existing customers, to understand what they think of it and hear their feedback too.
Don't feel like you're doing this alone, you can get so much input from your existing clients.
5. Create A Plan
Number 5 is to create a plan… I bet you could have guessed that I would have ‘creating a plan’ as one of my top tips for your business, because that is what I’m absolutely obsessed with! Have a plan in place. If you want to thrive in a recession, you need to do the stuff that other businesses are not doing.
When you are a smaller business, planning is not your priority. But if you do put some time into planning, you will stand head and shoulders above your competition.
It will come through in how you operate, it will come through in your level of professionalism with your clients, it will come through in your decision making, it will come through in your marketing that you put forward because you'll have a plan.
Now you might be thinking, What do you mean, what is a business plan?
At a really high level, it's a couple of pages written down about your business, it needs to include what your goals are, what your commitments in your business are, what you are focusing on for the next six months at least.
If you've got the time, I would really recommend focusing on a 6 to 12 month timeframe. But even a really high level plan for the next 3 to 6 months will be valuable going into the recession.
One element of your plan that I really, really want to stress is the marketing element. When it comes to growing your business, and generating revenue… What you do now will always show up in the next three months or so.
If you sit back and stop pushing your brand forward, you stop putting things out there on social media, you let things slip a little bit, there will be a point when the enquiries and the business starts to dry up.
This isn't the case for all businesses, some businesses might rely really heavily on word of mouth, and that business might just keep flowing. But my belief is what you do in your marketing will show up in three months.
You need to be consistent, you can look at lower cost options when it comes to marketing. For example, you can ask people for Google reviews, this is completely free, assuming you've got a Google My Business account set up which is also completely free.
When it comes to your plan, write yourself 3-5 clear goals that are really tangible. Give yourself some clear targets that you want to achieve in terms of your revenue growth, your number of clients, your social media presence, give yourself some really tangible goals and write it down.
Anyone who has worked with me in the past will know that I always work with my clients on their plans, developing their strategy, developing their business plan, making sure that they've got a really clear business roadmap for the year ahead.
If that's something you want to talk about, please do get in touch with me and I would love to have a chat. Click below to contact me.
To summarise I'm going to go through my 5 tips for business owners to get through a recession one more time for you:-
Connect with your clients.
Create a new lead generator in your business.
Look at your financial position.
Review your prices and your offers.
Create a plan.
Thanks for reading, make sure you follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn @jenlistercoaching to keep notified on my podcasts and blogs.
