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6 Ideas On Growing A Business In A Downturn
6 Ideas On Growing A Business In A Downturn
With the financial world in turmoil and many business owners watching fearfully from the sidelines, including myself!, I thought it might be a good time to discuss some of my ideas on how I plan to grow Small Box as we stare down an almost certain downturn. Here is part of our plan for Small Box, maybe you can steal some ideas for your business. If you have ideas you'd like to add please do so below as a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
1. Diversify Our Client Base- in particular we are interested to work in industries that tend to be recession proof. My thinking is death and taxes. PJ mentioned home repair since people tend to hunker down and invest in their homes instead of upgrading. Mainly I am interested in having a presence in as many different industries as possible so we can profile work for other potential clients in the same industry. I find that once we have done work for one company in an industry we often find others following closely. To quote an old auction buddy "You do work to get work".
2. Aggressive Advertising- It may seem counter intuitive to spend money in a downturn but we plan to invest heavily, and intelligently, over the coming months. Many companies want to either start or finish a new website by the end of the year so we find the September-November period is a busy one, along with February to June as companies kick off their year with new projects. If our plan is successful you will be hearing about Small Box from a variety of media outlets over the next few months. I expect weaker firms will be cautious in advertising during this time as they look to protect their cash flow balance so this is an opening for us to sprint ahead and become the premier Indianapolis web design company.
3. Constant Communication- Our goal in the coming months is to capitalize on the contacts we have made over the last 2 1/2 years. This means emailing the 3500+ members of the Chamber of Commerce, sending out regular press releases, emailing previous clients to see if they need updates or additional services, blogging on a regular basis, collecting testimonials, submitting our work on design galleries, maintaining our monthly newsletter, client surveys and a variety of other smaller efforts. Basically we are going to use our past work and reputation as leverage to reach out to a larger audience.
4. Be #1 In Google- There's a saying "the cook always eats last" and sometimes we feel that here at Small Box. We have lists upon lists of improvements for our website. Same goes for SEO- link building, directories, crazy ideas, etc. So we are going to spend the next couple months working to dominate local search. If someone types in "Indianapolis Web Design" or any variation we want to be #1, we want to be at the top of the Google Local listings as well. We also want to be on page one for a variety of different searches related to our industry and location. As you might expect we have been working hard on this for a while but over the next two months we are going to obsess over our rankings until a potential client in the Indianapolis area simply can't ignore us no matter what they type into Google.
5. Improve Everything, All The Time- our goal is to do even better work, faster. I strongly believe that being continually reactive is no way to grow a company. You have to focus as much on the fire not yet started as the one currently roaring. So at our weekly meetings we often get into heated conversations about how we can improve the way we work. One brainstorming session brought about an in-house Quote Engine that we can use to give a client same day turn around on a proposal. Another great idea (from PJ) was to create and implement a Quality Assurance program. These are a couple examples but the key is to actually implement these ideas. There is a large gap between a great idea and it's execution. My goal is for us to have a good and always improving batting average on turning good ideas into home runs.
6. Empower Employees- now that Small Box is no longer a start up and is entering into growth mode I am learning to delegate and empower our team. It's hard to let go but it's the only way to grow. In order for us to be the absolute best at what we do- using the web to grow businesses- everyone on the team has to buy-in to the big picture. Some of the ways we have encouraged buy-in is profit share, flexible working hours (and locations), commissions, raises and free meals. The result has been a team that does great work, enjoys doing it and enjoys each other. My goal is to keep this positive culture alive as we grow since I know it is the only way to have a healthy business in good or bad times.
4 Comments
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Comment by Jeb Banner on September 29, 2008 at 10:52am -
Thanks for the feedback!
Fortunately we have a wide base of potential customers since every business and organization needs a website. Also, most businesses are recognizing the need to market their website which creates ongoing revenue.
The challenge for us is to remain focused on our "hedgehog" (using the web to grow businesses) while taking advantage of opportunities that may push us into new service areas- business consulting for instance.
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Comment by Kyle Lacy on September 29, 2008 at 11:21am - Yes. Jeb is back! Don't be a stranger. Great post man.
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Comment by Hazel "The Queen" Walker on September 29, 2008 at 7:51pm -
Good Post Jeb:
I am always concerned when I have clients who want to spend more on advertising when they cannot answer these questions.........
1. Who is your target market?
2. What medium does your target market most use?
3. What is your tracking system for your advertising?
4. What is your Budget?
5. How many times and how often are you going to repeat the process?
As you know, vague target markets lead to a shot gun approach to advertising is not very successful. While I believe they should be advertising, without a long term approach it is not very effective. Unfortunately the moment I begin to work with my clients to narrow their target market the get all bleary eyed and start working to convince me that "No REALLY, I am different, I really can help anybody! My product or service is good for Everybody!
I think that target market is one of the most important concepts for a business to get, yet it is the very concept that small businesses avoid the most.
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© 2008 Created by Pat Coyle
In my business development and sales coaching practice, I've found the number one issue is to identify who your market really is. If your market is suffering a downturn and can no longer support you, it's time to find new markets. So many companies continue down the same path and are sucked into the downturn right along with their market. But the key is awareness of who is your customer.
Everyone of the 6 strategies sounds workable. Good luck!