Tweet

When The Going Gets Tough...The Tough Start Looking For New Customers

Written by: Guy Kingston

Article Overview: At the moment the news seems to be full of nothing but doom and disaster, fire and famine, war and pestilence, death and destruction. So it might seem insane to be talking about how to find new customers in these circumstances.

When The Going Gets Tough...The Tough Start Looking For New Customers

At the moment the news seems to be full of nothing but doom and disaster, fire and famine, war and pestilence, death and destruction.

So it might seem insane to be talking about how to find new customers in these circumstances.

On the contrary, now is precisely the time when it is most important to be thinking about new business. For a start, during the bad times it may be essential to find new customers to replace existing customers who go to the wall. On a more positive note, the links one forges in the hard times tend to endure, and they will probably be the source of far greater profits when the good times return.

In many businesses, bad times produce as many, if not more, business opportunities as good.
If the newspapers are full of war and the threat of terrorism, now is the time to sell life insurance. For most people the chance of being killed in combat or by terrorists is negligible, but it is the fear of these remote possibilities that sells the insurance.

If there are pictures of tornados, floods, or hurricanes on the television, it is good time to be in building materials. The pictures of flattened wooden houses are poignant but also an advertisement for bricks. Again, the brick house would not stand up much better than the wooden one against a major hurricane, but it is the feeling of security that sells.

Even famine in the Third World is a business opportunity. It would be wrong to exploit the starving local people – who, in any case, do not have any money – but when the aid agencies move in, they and their employees will need all sorts of support on the ground.

At this point, there is an obvious question: why write about this instead of going out and doing it?
To this here is an equally obvious answer: even hardened entrepreneurs sometimes feel that there is something indecent about making money out of the suffering of others.
Yet surely it all depends on precisely how one does business.

Meeting a basic need is not in itself immoral. It is, on the contrary, essential that someone does. Indeed, it may be a positive moral good to provide food, shelter, water, healthcare and the like. No one in their right minds would suggest that those who provide these things should not be paid. If they were not, these products and services would be reduced to permanent subsistence level everywhere.

So the farmer who produces the food deserves to be paid. If he happens to be an enterprising and efficient farmer who produces more, and therefore lowers the price to the consumer, he deserves to be paid more.

However, if he reduces production or hoards food in order to drive prices up – which is actually government policy in many Western nations – he is a profiteer.

He is also a bad businessman. If the whole point of getting new customers in bad times is to make more out of them in good times, his exploitation will be remembered and others will make the profits he could have made in the longer term.

Related Articles
  When Business Runs Dry...It's The Time To Turn On The Tap! How to Survive The Hard Times.
  A Tough Economy Can be Good for Your Career
  Get going to get results
  Are You A Scairdy Cat When Asking For Referrals?
  The Entrepreneurial Author: Surviving Tough Economic Times By Jay Conrad Levinson and David L Hancock Foreward by Rick Frishman

Article Tags: brick house, bricks, building materials, business meeting, business opportunities, business opportunity, death and destruction, existing customers, famine, floods, forges, good time, good times, hurricanes, life insurance, new business, pestilence, remote possibilities, third world, wooden houses



Related Forum Posts
Re: Two Useful Books To Help You Focus On The CLIENT - Hi David, To add to your thread, I'd like to recommend Jonathan Tisch's "Chocolates On The Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience". Tisch's book includes content on "Welcoming Customers", "The New Art of Customization", "The Challenges of Customer Diversity" and "Offering Something Extra to Your Customers" to name a few.
Re: What I'm reading this weekend - Nov 5, 2010 - Tough to say Yinka - I'm usually working about 25 hours per week - a lot of that is online. For most of these articles I pick them up from my RSS feeds, recommendations from friends, or Twitter posts. I'll do a quick skim of the article and if it looks interesting I'll save it for later to read.
Re: Quote of the Day - ?"Just because you come up against a wall - I love this. Thanks Evan for posting. I love this saying also. "Tough times never last, but tough people do."
Re: Kevin. What happened to all others moderators? - Thanks Kevin for your reply, I will be fulfilling my obligation of a moderator from now on. I was going through some rough times in the past months, that was why I was not consistent. Thank God the rough times is gone and i am back. Tough times never last but tough people last.
How to Do Great Marketing with (Amost) No Money - I've given this presentation to CEOs many times. Now i can share it with you. But I cannot because I do not yet have 20 posts. Jeff Ogden, President Find New Customers


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

How to Write Your Articles for Better SEO

Using Social Media Marketing

SEO Gurus, Software and Ebooks

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.