TOP TEN WAYS TO RECESSIONPROOF YOUR BUSINESS
TOP TEN WAYS TO RECESSIONPROOF YOUR BUSINESS
Here are our Top Ten recommendations of ways you can recession-proof your business:
1) Know Your P & L In addition to your income and expenses, measure and identify your accounts receivable (numbers & days to collect), customer retention rates, project estimates w/variances, sales cycles and closing ratios, and inventory control. Understand which numbers and percentages have to go up or down for you to succeed. Forecast a 10-15% decrease in revenue and create a plan.
2) Intensify Marketing This is an area that many business owners will cut first in a down economy. DO NOT CUT your marketing budget. Marketing is important in a good economy, but vital in a slow one. Stay networked and connected. Be creative and strive to obtain a bigger market share.
3) Cater to Current Customers and Deliver Extraordinary Customer Service Create new products and services. In a down economy, sometimes it is more cost effective to generate additional sales from existing customers than find new ones. Continue to build outstanding customer service solidifying repeat business and new customers through referrals. Make follow up calls and/or use direct mail to stay in contact with current customers.
4) Be Lean & Fit Cut costs where you can, but NO cost cuts in learning or marketing.
5) Reduce Debt Long-term debt can sometimes be renegotiated saving dollars on interest rates and increasing cash flow. Reduce inventory, if overstocked. Always efficiently manage the cash flow.
6) Keep Good Employees Look to hire even better employees in this age of corporate downsizing. All employees should add value and get results.
7) Adopt Cutting Edge Technologies Create efficiencies, reduce costs, improve service and increase employee satisfaction.
8) Maintain Prices While it is tempting to cut prices to free up cash flow, it is a mistake! You will definitely sell products, but you will cut your profit margins in the process. Discounts are also hard to take away when the economy improves.
9) Good Credit Ratings Good credit ratings are always important, even more so in lean times. You want to always make payments on time and maintain that credit rating. Your borrowing ability and loan costs depend on having good personal credit.
10) Dismiss Your Fear and Consider Expansion Any down-turn will create new business opportunities. Seek out market opportunities that would enhance your current business. New changes and growth will always have a positive effect on attracting new customers, satisfying existing customers and growing your asset.
TOP TEN WAYS TO RECESSIONPROOF YOUR BUSINESS - To learn more about this author, visit David Barr's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
The economy seems to be a topic thats discussed over and over in our local and national media and at almost every business level in America today. Predictions abound that the remainder of 2008 and into the first half of 2009 will see a decline in the economy.
Here are our Top Ten recommendations of ways you can recession-proof your business:
1) Know Your P & L In addition to your income and expenses, measure and identify your accounts receivable (numbers & days to collect), customer retention rates, project estimates w/variances, sales cycles and closing ratios, and inventory control. Understand which numbers and percentages have to go up or down for you to succeed. Forecast a 10-15% decrease in revenue and create a plan.
2) Intensify Marketing This is an area that many business owners will cut first in a down economy. DO NOT CUT your marketing budget. Marketing is important in a good economy, but vital in a slow one. Stay networked and connected. Be creative and strive to obtain a bigger market share.
3) Cater to Current Customers and Deliver Extraordinary Customer Service Create new products and services. In a down economy, sometimes it is more cost effective to generate additional sales from existing customers than find new ones. Continue to build outstanding customer service solidifying repeat business and new customers through referrals. Make follow up calls and/or use direct mail to stay in contact with current customers.
4) Be Lean & Fit Cut costs where you can, but NO cost cuts in learning or marketing.
5) Reduce Debt Long-term debt can sometimes be renegotiated saving dollars on interest rates and increasing cash flow. Reduce inventory, if overstocked. Always efficiently manage the cash flow.
6) Keep Good Employees Look to hire even better employees in this age of corporate downsizing. All employees should add value and get results.
7) Adopt Cutting Edge Technologies Create efficiencies, reduce costs, improve service and increase employee satisfaction.
8) Maintain Prices While it is tempting to cut prices to free up cash flow, it is a mistake! You will definitely sell products, but you will cut your profit margins in the process. Discounts are also hard to take away when the economy improves.
9) Good Credit Ratings Good credit ratings are always important, even more so in lean times. You want to always make payments on time and maintain that credit rating. Your borrowing ability and loan costs depend on having good personal credit.
10) Dismiss Your Fear and Consider Expansion Any down-turn will create new business opportunities. Seek out market opportunities that would enhance your current business. New changes and growth will always have a positive effect on attracting new customers, satisfying existing customers and growing your asset.
TOP TEN WAYS TO RECESSIONPROOF YOUR BUSINESS - To learn more about this author, visit David Barr's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
| |||
 |
No article feedback found. | ||
|
Leave Your Feedback | ||
|
|||
 EXPRESS YOUR LOVE!
| |||
| In order to experience love from others we need to experience and express love for ourselves first. Part of how we can express love for ourselves, is to share our love with others. You can deepen your self-love thro... |
|||
|
10 Ways to Better Manage & Motivate Your Sales Team
| |||
| Ten great strategies for elevating your success as a sales manager and motivator |
|||
|
How to Sell Green & Increase Sales
| |||
| Are you looking at the world around you and discovering ways to increase your sales? If not, why not? You are surrounded by opportunities all day everyday if youll just open your eyes and ears and put them to wor... |
|||
|
Stealth Market Research & Google Movies
| |||
 I love stealth market research -- that is, unusual ways of figuring out what companies and competitors are doing. There are all sorts of ways of doing this sort of thing, from counting cars in company parking lots o... |
|||
|
How To Triple Your Affiliate Profits In 30 Days Or Less
| |||
| Ever wondered how your life would be different if you could make 3 times the amount you're making now? Then read on... |
|||
| |||
Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
|||
David BarrDavid Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business. David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealmaker.com. - Visit David Barr's Website |
|||
Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
|||
Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
|||
Casey GollanCasey Gollan, Business Coaching & Mentoring Programs. Add $1 Million to $10 Million in the next 1 to 3 years. Since 1996 Casey has to added hundreds of millions of dollars to businesses. Watch a free video see client results Business Coaching website. - Visit Casey Gollan's Website |
|||
Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
|||
Bernard ReberBack in late 1992, MS Access hit the streets. About that time the company I managed needed new software to handle their growing client base and I decided to try this new product. I had little difficulty writing and adapting a database to suit us and discovered a hidden talent for programming. A business was born. With business studies and 25 years of management experience in three different countries under my belt, I could offer a unique combination of skills and my customers agreed. From these humble beginnings my software 'invoiceit' emerged in 1999 and has since been taken to 49 states (hello Wyoming, won't you join us?), all across Canada and more than 70 other countries. From the very beginning the program included cashbook accounting, the simplest form of keeping financial business records. The Dictionary.com defines 'cashbook' as "A 'book' in which to record money received and paid out". For 'book' substitute 'simple software' and that's what I'm about. Now I have published Simple Accounting, an inexpensive spreadsheet solution which even you can master. For just $14.95 it costs less than a takeout meal! More at http://www.scrambled-card.com/simple_accounting_main.htm - Visit Bernard Reber's Website |
|||
Dr. John OdaJohn Oda Ph.D NLP is a business peak performance expert, an author, and speaker frequently called upon to provide corporate training, workshops and seminars for many companies in the United States. He is an expert in coaching sales and business professionals in overcoming the behaviors and obstacles that may impede their sales results and affect their bottom line. Since 1995, John has created a speaking bureau such topics, which include: time management, sales training, human diversity, leadership programs and etc. He provides companies with a strategic plan to increase their bottom line by over 25 percent yearly. - Visit Dr. John Oda's Website |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
 | |
 David Barr (Visit David's Website) David Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business. David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealm aker.com.
|  |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Referred by: http://www.franchiseopportunityspecialist.com
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
 |
 | ||
|
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
| ||
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
|
 |
 Instant Brochures Purpose of Value Propositions Self-Employment Guide Radio Campaigns Instant Scripts |
|
 | ||
 |
Top 50 Productivity Blogs
Top Blogs To Watch In 2008 | |
 |
Top 50 HR Blogs 2009
Top 50 HR Blogs 2009 | |
| ||
 |
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
||||||||||||
