Top 10 Small Business Tips During a Recession

Whether you believe we're in a recession or not, the economy is on shaky ground right now. And if things continue to spiral downward, is your business ready to weather a recession?

Here are 10 tips on dealing with a recession for your business:

1) Cut costs cautiously. As soon as the economy starts slowing down, many business owners think they must cut costs. But this is a short-term solution. Only cut costs or decrease your prices if it won't harm your business later. You can always lower your price - but you can't always raise your price.

2) Think Sub- contractors - especially if health care costs are putting a strain on your budget. If you have employees, consider turning them into sub-contractors. There are very affordable, month-to-month video web conferencing services that allow you to still be in close daily contact.

3) Advertise, Advertise, & Advertise! During the last recession, McDonald's almost tripled their advertising campaign at a time when their competitors, namely Burger King, were cutting back. So even though this may seem counter-intuitive, a recession may be the time to increase your marketing. Hard economic times weeds out your competition, leaving the field wide open for you.

4) Plan Long term: The Japanese are famous for planning out their strategy 15 to 20 years in advance. They follow the way of the turtle to win the race. And it works! Remember, marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. Keep marketing every month, month in and month out, not stopping and starting on a whim.

5)Choose your marketing techniques wisely. You should be keeping track of which marketing venues brings you the most business. Reduce or eliminate those marketing techniques that aren't paying off for you, or fix them so that they do increase leads and sales. And consider a form of direct marketing where you can specifically test target markets without blowing your hard earned budget.

6) Revamp your marketing tools. For those marketing techniques that are working for you, this might be the time to revamp your marketing tools. Could your sales people use more training to close the deal? Online training cuts costs and time.

7) Automate wherever you can. Find ways to automate any tasks to reduce the workload on yourself and your staff. What have you been doing manually that a computer system can do for you? Take a look at all your daily tasks and see if there is a computer solution to these time-wasters.

8) Spend your time on what really matters. Have you ever heard of the 80/20 rule? It's a proven fact that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers. So treat your best customers like royalty. Spend 80% of your time focusing on marketing and delivering your product or service.

9) Make do and mend. Because raw materials were in short supply during World War II, people were encouraged to "make do and mend" an item instead of simply replacing it. Consider your own expenditures: do you really need a new computer, or could you somehow upgrade your existing one for less money? Do you need a new telephone or can you get by with the old one for a while longer?

10) Reduce inventories. If you sell a product, and you believe your sales are going to decrease, this might be a good idea to reduce inventories and not restock to the same level. This is a risky strategy (what if the recession only lasts 6 months?), so be sure you know exactly how long it will take to replenish inventories once the economy picks back up.

Now is the time to have a plan for dealing with a recession. It doesn't matter if we are in a recession now or not. These 10 tips will prepare your business for both good times and not so good times.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sonja_Mishek

Are You Relying On Luck?

Do you buy lottery tickets or enjoy the odd flutter on the dogs or horses? Perhaps you play a bit of roulette or blackjack? What about your business? Are you gambling that it will succeed too?

If that's your strategy, then the odds are stacked against you and you're likely to end up out of pocket and looking for a job.

And yet this is just what I see so many business owners doing. They don't know how they're going to get their clients or make sales. And they're very busy being busy but they don't know whether what they do works because they don't monitor anything.

If you don't have a proper business plan AND a marketing plan, you are relying too much on luck to carry you through.

Here are some of the other results of not planning:

• You don't know if your cashflow is enough to keep you going through a lean patch
• Budgeting doesn't exist - you just spend as you need to
• You don't like opening letters from the bank or credit card companies

"Successful people plan on paper" - I can't remember who said that, but it's so true!

Do you think people like Bill Gates or Richard Branson achieved their success without planning on paper? Sure, maybe in the very early days they winged it. But as soon as their businesses started getting serious, you can bet they began writing down their plans (or they got someone to help them).

Perhaps you believe you're too busy to take time out and write your plan. So you wait until you're less busy.... with less clients on your books, and less money coming in.....

Or maybe you don't like making plans or targets because then you might just have to do the work it takes to reach those targets.

Running your own business should be a combination of work AND fun. To get that balance you need to rely less on luck and more on planning. You should add a healthy dose of self-discipline as well.

One of the problems I've found through working with entrepreneurs is that they often aren't sure what they need to plan (and they don't like to ask for help because they think they should know). The guidelines given by banks and some other agencies can be so wordy and vague that they just add to the confusion. They also seem to call for very long (and boring) plans. In my experience, the more pages in the plan, the less likely it is to be looked at regularly.

It is possible to have simpler plans - as long as they include the essentials. What are you selling? To whom? How many? and How much? Then think about HOW you're going to achieve this, what marketing tactics will you use? Pick just a few to start with and measure their effectiveness.

Make your plans, write them down and review them at least once a month, ideally look at them every day - this will keep you on track and working harder to reach and exceed those targets.

Don't let your business go to the dogs - get planning and increase your odds for success!

© Louise Barnes-Johnston, 2008

Louise Barnes-Johnston is "The Business Accelerator". She provides business coaching and mentoring for entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses. Get a copy of her FREE report "10 Ways to Boost Your Business" at http://www.frontline-results.com

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How To Make Money With A Designer Purse Business

Designer purses are an item that's always in demand. No matter how the dictates of fashion what to wear might evolve, a designer handbag is always an important element on the fashion frontier. If you enjoy being around beautiful designer handbags, why not make a business out of it? There are a variety of ways you can make a respectable part-time or even full-time income in the designer handbag business. Here are some ideas:

Host a designer purse party.

Designer purse parties have become all the rage. They provide an opportunity for fashion conscious women to spend an evening socializing and shopping for designer handbags. All you need to host a designer purse party are a group of stylish friends and a healthy selection of designer handbags and wallets. Set the handbags up in your living room in an eyecatching display and prepare to take orders. Make the evening more memorable and promote your bags by having contests, playing fashion related games, and having fashion shows featuring the designer handbags. Serve some light refreshments and you have a recipe for a successful party. To expand your business, look for other people who want to share in your vision and host their own designer purse parties.

Sell designer handbags on eBay.

High end designer handbags can command astounding prices in the competitive and emotional auction environment. Join in the fun and pick up some profits by selling your own designer handbags on eBay and other online auction sites. Choose your purses carefully to ensure your profit margin is sufficient. Investigate designer handbag companies carefully before purchasing to avoid buying knock off merchandise. Your online reputation and the reputation of your designer purse business could be at stake.

Sell designer handbags through a home showroom.

Convert an empty room into your house into a showcase for designer purses. When the holiday season or other gift giving occasion rolls around, sponsor an open house complete with refreshments and a fashion show to show off your merchandise. Make it a regular event and you'll attract even more customers. To get the word out, mail postcards with a designer handbag motif on the front listing the date and time of the open house. Be sure to have a book to get the addresses of anyone who attends.

Sell designer handbags in local offices in your area.

There are lots of fashionable women working in business offices all over the country who don't have time to shop. Work out an arrangement with the office manager at local offices in your area to allow you to display your handbags during lunch hour. This will probably appeal to the management since it means fewer people will leave the office for lunch and come back late. You can even offer to give a portion of the profits from your designer purse business to the office. You can build up quite a loyal following this way.

Discover the secrets of buying designer purses at true wholesale prices. Visit http://www.designer-purse-party.com to discover what the insiders don't want you to know.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kristie_Leong

Where Do You Get All Those Customers From For Your Small Business?

As a small business owner, you realize the value of having live, able customers stepping through your door everyday. It's a simple question of math and conversion that those potential buyers become good profitable customers. However, you may be one of the many small businesses feeling short changed in that regard. Have you ever noticed some of the other small businesses in your area always seem to have enough of these types of customers? Some may in fact be busting out a good business.

Your competition may be getting a hand up on you in many different ways. A new product, head office support, advertising agency, newspaper promotion, coupons, etc. Rarely though do I find small independent businesses making use of the most cost effective communication medium available - The Internet.

If you are a small business and do not have an ongoing marketing effort online, you are most certainly handing customers over to your competition. In fact, you might as well gift wrap them and send them over with a sticky note on their back saying "Can you take this buyer? I don't really need a buyer today."

Smart small business owners these days know how valuable a buyer can be, not just their first visit, but for repeated visits and then for bringing in other customers. But you need more and more of them as your business competition gets tougher and tougher. That's why the internet is so perfectly suited for the future of your small business marketing.

It's inexpensive to setup (if you do things right that is), and there are ways to reach any potential customer you want, and communicate your products and service directly to that person. You can even direct your message to potential customers in a specific geographic area whether that be near your location or clear across the continent.

What a lot of small business owners don't realize is that it isn't as difficult as it seems to set up a website, (an effective website that is), get it noticed in the search engines and then start building an online clientele that will eventually come through your doors. Maybe its a few half-days of work. You can get your family involved or even a staff member or two during their down time. Everybody loves special assignments, especially if it's out of the ordinary routine. The thing is once it is set up, it pretty much runs itself and can be your best selling employee working non-stop with no wages, no benefits, no holidays, and no drama.

Once you get an internet presence working for you and have it as part of your everyday sales system your competition will soon be wondering: Where do you get all those customers from?

Marty Shmanka is currently a webmaster but as a former restaurant owner knows the challenges of owning a small business. His website ShoestringIngenuity.com takes the mystery out of good small business website design or restaurant website design and uses video instruction to show you how you can do it yourself and save thousands of dollars. It`s a lot easier than you think.

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Small Business Truths - 7 Things The Experts Don't Tell You About Starting & Running A Small Busines

It's All About Marketing

Marketing is about what prospects and clients think, about their perceptions. You must find a way to have them think of your products or services before they think of those of your competitors. You must discover what's important to them.

Focus is Essential

To be successful in business you must have a crystal clear picture of who your prospect is, your target market. And you need to know exactly what it is you're trying to sell them. You cannot be all things to all people.

Good Systems Create Good Performance

A system is simply the way things happen in your business. Poor systems create major problems. Your people can succeed only with clear systems that they can follow easily. Forget procedures. Concentrate on systems.

Think Like A Manager

Most people who start businesses because they're good at something. That dominates their thinking. Small business management demands management thinking: about the "big picture" and how one thing affects another. Managers lead. They accept responsibility for what happens.

Perception Is Reality

The way people - staff, customers, suppliers, associates - see things is reality to them. Clients' opinions may be unreasonable, illogical, impractical, inaccurate or even stupid. But they're the reality you must deal with. Find out what your prospects and customers perceive they want. Then provide it.

Take Care Who You Listen To

It's easy to be misled by friends - and by experts. Follow what Bill Gates was doing when he employed two people: not what Microsoft does today. Ignore "best practice" unless it's in an extremely successful small business operating in a market similar to yours. Pick the brains of successful small business people not the 'Captains of Industry".

Learn To Observe

If you want to know what experts do and why and how they do it, don't ask. Observe, then ask. There's a mountain of research to show that experts are poor describers and explainers of what they do. This applies to managers and tennis players.

Conclusion

Running a small business is a great adventure. It can be frustrating, demanding, unrewarding and debilitating. When you're successful, it's extraordinarily satisfying. To help you reach that state remember these seven truths.

Leon Noone invites you to contact him on http://www.leonnoone.com where you can collect your free copy of his 42 page Special Report: "5 Proven Methods For Improving Employee Performance On The Job". He's published books on staff selection and team development as well as various video, text/audio and self instruction programs on staff selection, staff training and staff motivation.

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Small Business Ideas - What's Hot Now!

There have always been plenty of good ideas for making money via small businesses, and more so, online. In fact, the amount of people who own small businesses has drastically increased over the past decade, and more of them are into trades that were never thought possible at one time.
One thing that you should remember is that although your idea may be the least well-known and the most likely to make an impact, it can still bomb if it isn't nurtured in the right manner. For now, though, let's have a look at the best small business ideas for turning a tidy profit.

Domain Selling

People who buy and sell domains make a tidy sum on each transaction. It's simple. Go to any domain selling website, and buy a domain. On that URL, make a mention that this domain may be for sale. You'll have a lot of bidders if the domain name has these characteristics: It's easy to spell, it includes a keyword, or if it's misspelled in such a manner that it still has a lot of traffic passing through it. Say: Tahoo instead of Yahoo. Since T and Y lie next to each other on the normal QWERTY keyboard, misspelling can be common. And in this case, you get the benefits.

Content Writing

Writing articles for other websites is a really good way to make some money. Although the major boom has passed, copy writing is still a good idea for a small business. Out of all careers, copy writing is one of the most lucrative. All you need is a good turn of phrase, and some creative brain cells. Why not gather up a few writers, and get started? Or better yet, why not try to make it on your own?

Virtual Assistant

All companies need someone to do their data entry for them. Why shouldn't it be you? Or better yet, why not gather a small team? There is a lot of demand for virtual assistants. Supplying this demand is a prime small business idea. Being a virtual assistant yourself also has a lot of perks for all that it might be slightly boring! At the end of the day, you're the winner.

Get more freelance business ideas at FreelanceSprout.com.

April Boone is the owner of Global Marketing Solutions. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=April_Boone