Costco Magazine “Recession Busters” Article
They edited my article down a bit and ran it in their January Costco Connections Magazine. Thought you might enjoy it without the edits…
Buck the Recession
Recession. What recession?! Or so goes the attitude of some business owners in this tough economy. Take heart – they’re among a substantial number of businesses that are not getting beaten up these days. In fact, they’re thriving.
Here’s what you can do to become a recession buster, too.
Get searched. It’s no coincidence that small businesses are creating websites in ever greater numbers. With a little effort, it becomes very easy to get search engines like Google to send you traffic. It’s all a matter of deliberately designing your website and content so that the search engines are attracted to your site and give it priority over other sites with similar content. Tweak a phrase here, add text there and before you know it, you’ll be getting online traffic without spending a dime. It’s up to you to then convert those visitors into paying customers.
Add meaning. Customers have a harder time “pulling the trigger” on purchases in a down economy. To give them even more impetus to spend their money with you, add meaning to your business by standing for something. Find a cause that you would like to associate with and share a portion of proceeds with that cause. Or better yet, promote to your customers how you and your whole company volunteer for a cause with your time or conduct your business sustainably. The respect you gain will broaden the purchasing decision tree from strictly monetary to ideological and emotional considerations as well.
Create systems. There are very few things about a business that can’t be standardized. The more predictable, repeatable and reliable your business activities are, the more efficient you become. By studying, streamlining and then documenting a systemized approach to things like customer service, financial management, team communication, marketing, etc., you’ll find that you’ll be able to free your mind of the procedural aspects of your business and focus more time on creative and innovative ways to be valuable to your customers.
Spark word of mouth. Stop spending on advertising as a first priority. Start figuring out ways to give people something to talk about. Add to that tools that make it easy for word-of-mouth to spread. For example, instead of just sending an e-newsletter featuring products (ho-hum), take it to a new level of buzz worthiness by including a juicy personal commentary, heartstring-pulling story or perhaps an outrageously funny photograph that makes people want to pass the e-newsletter along to someone else. Before you know it, your advertising budget will be zero and your inbound traffic will balloon.
Read about the Top Ten Recession Busters from the recently published 2008 StartupNation Home-Based 100.
You can also read this feature story about their strategies.
January 16th, 2009 at 10:22 am
The “Spark word of mouth” is very useful
January 16th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
This is some good advice. Thanks. The recession seems to be all that anyone is talking about and that is understandable considering how much of an impact it has on all of us. Still just hoping 2009 will bring some changes for the better. We will see what comes out of it.
January 16th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I am a pharmacist who has been working a business startup focusing on personal health records and electronic medical records for the past year or so. I recently discovered StartupNation.com and have been using it to guide me along. I appreciate your artical in the Costco Connections. I am currently working with a website developer to re-do my website. Your thoughts have basically echoed everything that he is telling me.
Thanks and keep up the good work.
January 16th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Loved the tips on improving the e-newsletter. Thanks!
January 17th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Love the free local advertsing - “Spark”. Get involved with a cause, a community, an idea, sponsor something and watch the community spread the word for you. Everyone needs a feel good story; you will be surprised how many supporters you will have in your community, and word will spread in today’s negative mood. It is the sunshine hey yearn for.
mrfranchiseman.com
August 31st, 2009 at 10:10 pm
i think that the Economic Recession would soon be over in the following years. there are lots of positive indicators in the world economy.
September 6th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Economic recession created huge unemployment rates around the world. I think the world economy is already on the road to recovery.
October 18th, 2009 at 1:44 am
the economic recession made a lot of workers jobless. my best friend and me lost our jobs because of job cuts. i hope that our economy would recover soon
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:18 am
the Economic recession made a lot of jobless people in my own country. We could only hope that our economy becomes strong again
January 5th, 2010 at 10:35 am
I think we are also seeing some signs of recovery from the Economic Recession. Of course, we have no idea of how long it will take to completely recover, but some say it’s going to be longer than for the other recessions in decades. I also scanned an article yesterday that said business owners need a new set of tactics to do well during recovery.
February 18th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
during the height of the economic recession, our online and offline business in the US have suffered some major drop in sales. now our sales are getting slowly back to normal.
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