It may seem that growth is not possible in a recession. The common belief is that in a recession, one should only try to make ends meet with the lowest cost, in a situation where sales are decreasing every day and costs are increasing!
But the reality is that stagnation can become a platform for growth, just like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon.
In this article, we will discuss strategies to grow and increase income during recession.
It takes insight and strategic vision to achieve what most people don’t.
Regarding today’s specific topic, growth in a recession, the strategic view is to look for ways to generate income that can multiply and grow continuously with positive momentum.
Suppose you are the owner of a flower shop and for example you have a net income of $1000 per month. Is the way your business is currently operating in such a way that this $1,000 can be multiplied to $100,000? If someone orders 100,000 flowers right now, do you have the possibility to supply them?
If the answer to this question is no, then you should look for new ways to generate money.
The problem of many entrepreneurs and managers is that they do not design their business in such a way that it can be easily grown. An important part of a manager’s time should be devoted to system building and not to performing minor and low-value services and tasks.
To achieve 10x or even more growth, you need to create a system that works for you with high productivity and constantly increases the value of your time, which means that it increases your income more and more.
In the rest of the article, we will discuss 7 specific points, the implementation of which can create a fundamental change in your work process.
1.Set aside time for important and non-urgent tasks that are hidden under the cover of triviality
There are many managers who have no time at all.
They know that they have to solve the basic problems of their work, but they don’t have time! They know that one of their employees damages the collection and even destroys the motivation of other employees, but they don’t have time! If they had time, they would have hired a suitable person.
They advertise in magazines, but they don’t have time! If they had time, they would prepare a good plan and appropriate text.
How can a manager not have time for such important tasks? Because his time is filled with much more mundane tasks.
The important thing is that most managers do not allocate time for important and non-urgent tasks. Real and accelerated growth in business only happens when we make time for important tasks that have no urgency and maybe none of us will ever want to do them.
Golden Rule
Remember that details matter. Throughout history, many businesses and investments have been lost just because of a small spelling mistake on a product.
2.Review your team members
A collection of ordinary employees with ordinary abilities makes up an ordinary business. To have a great business, you need great employees. A highly capable and motivated employee may influence business development as much as the manager or even more than him.
For exponential growth in business and sales, it is necessary to review our team. The team should be composed of people who are motivated more than usual, optimistic and positive, love to learn and improve, and take responsibility for all their work and even others.
One of the biggest problems of companies that don’t grow is unmotivated employees who immediately transmit this feeling to the customer. If you have unsuitable employees, don’t wait for something special to happen and they will leave your job. Do it yourself. Don’t fool yourself with the excuse that no one will be found as a replacement and our work will face problems. Look at hiring as an investment and not a waste of time.
I may not have time for many things, but I always have time to hire amazing people
Bill Gates
When you are sure that the whole team is composed of very extraordinary and powerful people, you must find a solution that the team is always learning; For example, prepare books or videos for them and arrange discussion sessions and courses for them.
If you are not fully satisfied with your employees, you probably either have problems hiring the right people, or you fail to train employees continuously.
3.Change your strategy
If we refer to the dictionary, the definition of strategy is as follows: arranging internal forces in such a way that they are in a superior position compared to the enemy.
Strategy is a word that comes from war. To put it very simply, having a strategy means: having a method to use available resources and facilities to win over competitors. In war, no one can claim to be very powerful, but because his soldiers were tired, he failed. In any case, the result is important and not the reasons and excuses.
If you don’t have a proper strategy, you might waste a lot of energy and resources and you won’t get good results from your efforts.
Suppose you have a product and you offer it in your city, which is a very small city. You have many competitors and you try day and night to prove that your work is much better than the competitors. This erosion operation has left you completely exhausted and incapacitated. Maybe you think to yourself that I should try harder or I should work 10 hours instead of 8 hours and I will finally succeed. You may spend a lot of time and energy trying to sell a product or service in a market that is saturated.
But if you change your strategy, you may be able to achieve much greater success with less resources and facilities; For example, find another city around you that has much more applicants and much fewer competitors; Therefore, the right strategy for you is to quickly enter a new market where there are not many contenders. With more effort, you may not be able to increase your sales 10 times, but by choosing the right strategy, this may be possible.
4.Look for tough and big customers
Earl Nightingale has a very interesting sentence that is worth thinking about:
Maybe there is a customer around you, if you can find him and convince him to buy from you, each of his purchases will be more than your total monthly sales
Big sales and income are achieved with big customers.
Let’s say you wrote a book about business and gave it to a publishing company, and your book was distributed in small bookstores around town and elsewhere. For example, suppose you have sold 2000 copies in 6 months.
Now what if you want to sell 20,000 copies? Do bookstores and small shops have this capacity?
To reach such a sale, you have to go to bigger markets. In this example, you can go to large companies and government agencies in your city, where your book may be suitable for their employees. In this way, you may receive 10 or 20 orders of 1000 copies.
This sale will be the result of your new strategy and going to big customers.
5.Use more media for branding
We need to use more media at the same time. People have different habits and tastes. Some young people with computers and internet prefer to make their purchases through the internet as much as possible. Therefore, we can find these people on the Internet and offer our products and services. There are others who read newspapers every day and have never used the Internet in their life; Therefore, it is possible to reach these people through the newspaper.
So far, we have talked about two media, i.e. internet and newspaper. Now take a piece of paper and write down at least 20 other media that come to your mind and use them to convey your message. Magazines, radio, workplace walls, business cards, answering machines, exhibitions, conferences, product packaging, billboards, advertising banners, e-mail, mobile software, etc. can all be used as marketing media.
6.Use for-profit partnerships
With a for-profit partnership we can find people who can each generate a lot of sales. There are thousands of people like you who have spent a lot of time and money to get customers. You can use this opportunity and enter into a deal with other business owners. There are many business owners who will be happy to sell your product to their customers and make a significant profit.
Therefore, profit partnership allows you to use other people’s time, money and facilities and sell your product and others also benefit from this transaction.
In other words, profit partnership is an informal business relationship in which two parties agree to share their business facilities in return for profit.
A for-profit partnership does not mean buying a part of your or the other party’s business or interfering in each other’s work; Rather, your partner simply helps you earn more and you consider a profit for him.
Your partners can be competitors, providers of complementary products and services, or businesses completely unrelated to your business, if both businesses have the same type of customers.
For example, if you have created a photography training course, you can ask camera vendors to sell it for you.
When negotiating a partnership, always remember that a partnership will only last if both sides win. So, when considering the benefits for the partner, be generous and try to make the other party completely satisfied.
If the other party insists on making as much profit as you, calculate all your costs carefully and subtract them from the final amount of the product so that the amount of profit is reasonable and correct. In calculating costs, consider packaging, shipping, periodical discounts, warehouse costs and other items.
7.Work more professionally
Specializing will make your business grow faster. If you increase the scope of your activities and enter into fields unrelated to our main work, the side costs usually increase.
The narrower your scope of activities, the better and more specialized your team can provide. Don’t fall into the trap of being everything to everyone. Recession conditions are perhaps the best opportunity to make our work narrower, more specialized and deeper. Boldly eliminate some products and services altogether and focus on the most profitable options.
