Perhaps, you sell seasonal products.
Perhaps macroeconomics is taking a toll on your operations.
There are quite a few instant quick fix remedies for slow businesses.
First of all, don’t panic. There are times when every entrepreneur slows down. Your first instinct might be to freak out and think your business is broken. You could get stuck in a bit of anxiety, depression, and nerves, but that does no good and leads only to inaction – and as a result – more problems.
Instead, here’s a list of things you can do when your business gets slow:
- Do An Informal Audit
Spend one full day to look through your numbers, and examining the strengths and weaknesses of your work so far.
Do a management audit. Review your legal procedures and all your financial statuses. Rethink and clearly visualize your long-term goals. Compare your current achievements and resources in hand, and understand the magnitude of the gap that’s between the two. Your business would be stronger, healthier and ready to accept clients.
- Launch Popcorn Products
Create a popcorn product.
A popcorn product is something that you can create in a very little period of time – say a week or a weekend, price it between INR 400 – 1000 [$7- $27] and sell it to your audience. For example, if you run a career counseling center, and your usual products are ranged at 5000-6000 INR per student, create a plan tailor-made session that would last 10 times shorter, and hence would make it possible for you to sell at a much, much-reduced cost.
But remember, a popcorn product is something that you sell, not a free giveaway.
- Form a New Habit
It’s important to amp up your personality and skills. Lying around idle, and thinking about your empty daydreams isn’t going to help much when business is slow. Which is why it’s important to form a new habit at this stage.
Your new habit maybe writing in your journal every day. It may be working on your fitness. Jogging. Hitting the gym. Or reading one book a week.
It’s up to you what habit you wish to cultivate, but you just need to take up something productive and put your time to positive use.
- Cold Pitch
When business is slow, you don’t have the luxury of a monthly paycheck. To have the best shot at having a decent cash flow, you want to constantly be marketing your services and signing on new clients. Create a list of prospective leads using LinkedIn or your already existing email database, and make those cold calls and cold mails!!
- Rewrite a Business Plan
If you have never written a business plan, well, now may be the right time to do so. If you already have a business plan in place, then it’s time to grab a chair, sit in front of a clean desk, and rewrite that business plan – this time rethinking about your vision and mission with a flavor of the lessons you’ve learned from your past mistakes. You have to cover your financial resource, your values, your brand positioning, your marketing strategies – well, you know, cover the whole nine yards.
- Rebrand
Work on your logo. Come up with a new name. Invest in design. Test new colors. Play around with your website layout.
Rebranding yourself when business is slow is an old but gold strategy to a refreshing new tomorrow.
- Host a Workshop
Pick a venue. Even your living room, with a bookshelf background would do. Having a whiteboard, and a coffee maker would be a good start. Shoot an invitation through your mailing list, and invite your subscribers and old customers to attend a one day workshop.
With a camera and a fast internet connection, you can even have viewers to opt-in to watch online.
- Write a Book
Want to get your business on the superfast lane when business is slow? Put down all your years of experience in a book, and promote the heck out of it!
A book can be a great way to amp up your personal brand and can help you find new people who might be needing your product or service. When you market this book, though, make sure that you’re doing it as a businessman and not an author. Your target is not to sell copies, but to generate and convert leads!
- Attend Events
Business, dad often tells me – is all about the networking.
So put on your best outfit, get a pair of great shoes, and attend an event. You can witness for yourself, the entire population set of your target audience at workshops, felicitations, weddings, dinner parties, and thank me later.
So there you have it.
Business is seasonal.
The weather changes. Trends come and go. Kids get out of school. The market has periodic fluctuations. Does that mean all companies and entrepreneurs are inevitably doomed for a fall?
Of course not.
The businesses that thrive are often the businesses that diversify and immunize themselves with a little strategic planning.
XOXO,
Bala ❤
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