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2. Cut the fat out of your business. Businesses tend to get sloppy when sales are rolling in and money is easy. You might be shelling out for a Facebook marketing campaign right now that hasn’t done a freaking thing for your bottom line in six months. Maybe you’re wasting time sending emails that could be automated
or letting a third of your leads fall through the cracks because your sales system is a mess and you don’t have a protocol in place for multiple follow-ups! Now is the time to sit down with your team, look at the money going out and the systems you have in place, and use tried-and-true business principles to clean up the crap. Don’t knock the basics: They’ve gotten companies like mine through every recession so far. “Your competitors are fearful right now. They’re laying off staff, compromising customer experience, and slacking off on follow-ups and nurture campaigns. So, it’s time for you to be greedy!” 3. Find and smooth out friction points. Friction points lead to increased customer churn and unhappy employees — things that won’t do you any favors in a recession. To prevent future problems, look for areas in your sales process, hiring process, and customer journey that frustrate your employees, annoy your customers, or are just overly complicated. What do your customers complain about? What does your team gripe about? The biggest culprits are your friction points. Remember that for every complaint that comes in, there are three people with the same problem keeping their mouths shut. Maybe you get a lot of complaints from customers about the way you bill. Maybe your team struggles to hit a particular KPI every month or hasn’t quite figured out your new CRM system yet and keeps making mistakes. Figure out how to alter your systems, change your policies, or revise your goals to remove those friction points. The worse the economy gets, the more penny-pinching customers will complain and reveal these issues to you.
I give this advice to business owners all the time, but they don’t always listen. Often, they fall victim to one of these two mistakes: They either wait too long to get started, or they let their ego get in the way and refuse to hire the coaches, consultants, and experts they need to make it happen. Don’t be one of those people! Instead, follow the wise words of Warren Buffett: “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” Your competitors are fearful right now. They’re laying off staff, compromising customer experiences, and slacking off on follow-ups and nurture campaigns. So, it’s time for you to be greedy! Make those investments, do that hard work, and double down on the efforts you’ve already made. If you do all that, your business will come out on top no matter how tough the economy gets.
- Shaun
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