As an independent consultant and service-business owner, these challenging times (especially here in the midwest) have reminded me what makes a business successful. I’ve enumerated the elements of my business’s success here–they’re difference-makers for me, and the reasons my firm will outlast our competition during this downturn:
1 - Place customers’ needs above everything. Don’t want to take a call for help on a Saturday night? Tough, your customer is in trouble and they need you. So put on your snow boots and go help them.
2 – Call your customers even when they’re not calling you. Demonstrate concern even when there’s no money changing hands. It will come back in the form of more business.
3 – During lean times, no customer is too small, unless they take your attention from a bigger customer.
4 – Use inexpensive labor resources to decrease your customers’ costs–before they do it on their own. When a lot of good unemployed talent is on the street, you can take advantage of that talents’ recent availability in order to drive your customers costs down. It’s called outsourcing, or as I prefer to put it, localsourcing. You provide less expensive labor options for your clients and get a bigger chunk of their pie at the same time.
5 – Spend money on marketing. Yes, don’t shrink away from the guerrella marketing attitude that got you to your current success plateau just because there are economic clouds raining outside your office window. In fact, marketing is received more postitively in a tougher economy that it is when things are hot. When times are tough, your potential clients are more likely to switch vendors, so don’t stop marketing to them, and maybe they’ll switch to you.
6 – Reward business growth more heavily than normal. Motivate your business development resources by giving them even bigger rewards for growth. Assuming you’re not already in the red, put your money where your mouth is and remind your employees that “we’re in grow or die” mode.
7 - Retain your best people. During downturns, good salespeople are going to get recruited while poor ones will get kicked to the curb. Keep your best people happy, productive, and let them know how much you appreciate them–so you can keep them out of job interviews.
8 – Only take profitable work. Don’t get caught in bidding wars just to keep your labor resources working. When we come out of this slump, you’ll regret the burden of a bunch unprofitable work that you took on just to keep your people employed.
9 – Outsource, outsource, outsource. I already suggesting providing outsourcing. Now practice what you preach and use it, too. Give your specialized internal projects to a local firm. That new in-house trouble-ticketing system? That server upgrade your I.T. guy has been putting off? Shop them locally and you’ll be pleased with the results you get by using a specialist.
10 – Invest in competitive advantage. While your competition “waits it out”, invest in technologies and alliances that will bring you out ahead. This might mean refitting your computer network or putting that new customer contact management solution in–so it’s ready to rock when the downturn comes to an end.
