During a recession, consumer confidence drops, and customers become scared. This has an impact on business. However, not all businesses are impacted as some businesses thrive if they can adapt to the surrounding circumstances. Below are the 7 fundamentals to help grow your business during uncertain times.
During times of growth, businesses become complacent and allow their company to maintain the status quo. It is only when a crisis hits like the Coronavirus or the threat of a possible recession do businesses really need to get creative.
This disruption causes business to think differently. A good example of these businesses is Uber, Amazon, Airbnb, Slack, Pinterest and WhatsApp. So, if you are not only looking to survive but thrive during uncertain times, then here are 7 key fundamentals to implement grow your business.
Build a community
Now more than ever it is important to create little micro-communities of customers who Know, Like and Trust you. Engage with them and build their trust as you will need their support during this tough time. Create Facebook Fan pages and community groups, set up regular webinars and community-based events. These will be your most engaged loyal customers. Nothing pulls a crowd like a crowd so once this starts gaining moment, and it will, it will be easier to grow your micro-communities into large communities of loyal supporters.
Focus on cashflow
Cashflow is the lifeblood of any organisation. We all know the saying “Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is reality”. It is very important for businesses to ensure a steady cash flow into the business. They can do that by reducing unnecessary expenses, doing a financial audit on your business, or speaking to your customers to find out what needs they have and start building products to calm their fears.
Introduce new products
In this time of uncertainty, the products and services that attracted your customers initial might not keep them. This is the time to speak to your customer and find out what challenges they are facing and see how you can build these products. This can easily be done in your micro-communities.
It is important to create products up and down the value chain as some customers might be looking to increase their services with you, while others might be looking to reduce. Make sure you have a product to suit their need. Look what is happening now, everyone is being asked to stay at home and self-isolate, which means everyone is doing everything online. What can you do?
Stress-test your business
Run scenario-based planning on your business. See what would happen to your business if everyone went online, or if you lost a client. Running different scenarios allows you to plan for the future. This planning will highlight the holes in your business.
Such holes could be that you are relying on one large client for most of your work. Also, look at creating short term and long-term cash flow as well as short term and long-term equity.
Short term cash flow could be acquiring a new client, long term cash flow could be a subscription-based model. Short term equity could be partnering with another business to deliver a specific service and long-term equity could be buying another business. By having multiple income streams, you are more likely to succeed during a recession rather than go under.
Don’t be scared to ask for help
If this is your first recession don’t feel scared to ask for help. There are businesses that have been through this before and can help you. We all know that it is good to learn from our own mistakes, but it is also better to learn from the mistakes of others. Use their expertise to help your business bypass the pitfalls of a market in crisis.
Build your brand
One of the most fundamental things you need to do is focus on our brand and not cut back on Marketing. Get clear about who you are, what you do and the value that you offer to customers. Find how you can help them in these challenging times and build products to solve their needs.
When markets are booming there is a lot of competition and everyone is spending. However, during a crisis, the market is less competitive which means it costs less to get your message in front of your customers. Just make sure it is the right message and it is tailored to meet their needs. What worked before will not work now and you need to adjust to market conditions.
Give back to people and help
During uncertain times, the market is fearful, and you will get more response from customers if you are authentic and help them. Customers are not looking for the latest new gadget or some new aspirational product, what they want is reassurance. Brands that can build an emotional connection with customers rather than a practical connection which don’t perform well.
Offer your services for free, allow customers the opportunity to put things on hold. Yes, we are all in times of crisis and need money to keep the lights on, but these sorts of things will be remembered, and customers will come back and bring their friends.
Conclusion
Hopefully, you found this useful as we enter a time of uncertainty. The only thing that is certain these days is that if you don’t adapt to new market conditions, you will be left behind wondering what happened.
