Buck The Recession

The following is an article that is a must read for any exisiting company onwers or those looking to start a new company:

“Buck The Recession”

By: Rich Sloan (www.StartupNation.com)

There are a substantial number of businesses that will get beaten up by these trying times. In fact, they’ll thrive.
Here’s what you can do to become a recession buster, too.

Get Searched (check out www.boostlabs.com for more info).
Small businesses are crating Web Sites in ever greater numbers. With a little effort, it becomes very easy to get search engines such as 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. 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 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 your proceeds with that cause. Let your customer know you and your company volunteer for a cause with your time to 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
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 customer service, financial management, team communication, marketing, etc., 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 the 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, heart string 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.