Websites 4 Small Business Newsletter
15 August 2005

DEALING WITH BUSINESS SLOW DOWNS
By Vishal P. Rao

When times are slow for your home-based business, chances are you 
won't have the luxury of waiting and seeing if things improve. 
You'll need to take steps quickly to get back on track.

These suggestions will help you get business back to normal:

1) Add Products And Services

During slow times, your very instinct might be to cut corners, but 
in the case of your catalog of products and services this could 
spell disaster. Instead, you want to select additions carefully 
based on the needs and desires of your clients.

Think of it this way: let's say you provide web design services. 
Your client hires you for the design work, then goes elsewhere to 
get a logo, hosting, and content. Having to hire four different 
companies just to complete one project is not cost-effective or 
time-efficient for your client.

So what if you could offer web design and hosting or web design and 
everything else necessary as well? Chances are you'd have a definite 
advantage over your competition.

Even if you don't have the skills or ability to handle those aspects 
of the project, you could team up with other companies like yourself 
who also want to boost business and give themselves a competitive 
edge.

No matter what product or service you primarily provide, you could 
find ways to provide additional necessities to your clients.

2) Step Up Customer Service

Hopefully, you already provide good service and support to your 
customers, and you are probably already aware of how critical this 
is to your business's success. But when times get rough, customer 
service is even more crucial and you need to go beyond the call of 
duty to convince clients that their business is important to you.

For example, you may want to guarantee responses within a few hours, 
instead of a few days. You may want to follow up with thank you 
cards or phone calls. If a problem does arise, act immediately to 
take care of it and rectify the situation to the client's 
satisfaction.

Remember not only is that customer's business at stake, but also the 
potential business of every single person he or she is acquainted 
with.

3) Market More

Business is slow; budgets are tight. So what usually gets trimmed 
first? Marketing. Do you know what the results are? Disaster!

When you conduct marketing, you are not selling yourself to generate 
business today or even tomorrow. Marketing is an investment in your 
business's future. In fact, research has shown that most marketing 
efforts don't pay off for at least six months.

So think about that. Let's say you cut back on marketing in June and 
you weather the economic down cycle, what's going to happen in 
December? Absolutely nothing! Because all of your potential clients 
have been won over by the marketing efforts of your competition 
which were conducted during the summer.

Instead of cutting back, a slow down is the time to boost marketing. 
Get back in touch with past clients, attend seminars, pass out 
fliers. After all, if work is slow, what else are you going to be 
spending your time doing?

4) Keep A Positive Attitude

Times are hard. Your nerves are on edge. You're feeling the 
pressure. When a past client calls to ask how things are going, do 
you tell them the truth and hope they take pity on you? Do you 
wallow in a self-defeating attitude? NO!

If you want to get through the hard times, you have to keep in mind 
two things:

A) No one is going to do business with a failing company and

B) Hard times are only temporary.

Let's think about this. If you called up a company about business 
and the representative says, "It will be great to be finally getting 
some new clients" or "Things have been horribly slow around here 
lately" are you going to trust them with your project? No.

The first thing you are going to be wondering is why they haven't 
been doing well. And that's what your potential clients will wonder 
about you as well.

So how do you keep from breaking down on the phone with your 
clients? By remembering that business is a cycle and just as things 
are bad now, they will turn around and you will be doing well again. 
The only thing permanent is giving up.

5) Branch Out

When things are slow with your business, you can take the 
opportunity to do all those things you always wanted to do but never 
had the time for.

Why not write some articles or an e-book related to your business, 
then sell them or publish them to earn more money and to further 
establish your credibility.

Or take a shot at teaching a class on e-commerce, computers, or a 
topic related to your business at a local college, vocational 
school, or adult learning center. Even if you don't get paid, the 
exposure could do great things for your business.

You could also start giving speeches, take some business or 
technology classes, or take on some part-time work that will give 
you more experiences that will help you compete in the market when 
things go back to normal.

Although ups and downs are simply an inevitable part of business, 
dealing with them effectively can make the difference between 
staying afloat or going under.

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Vishal P. Rao is the editor of Home Based Business Opportunities 
- A website dedicated to opportunities, ideas and resources for 
starting a home based business. He also runs the Work at Home 
Forum - an online community of folks who work at home.

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