5 Recession Busting Tips
Pay close attention to accurate billing, pursue leads relentless and make every cost accountable if you want to come out of the recession alive.A tough economy often means tough times for small businesses and freelancers who may already be struggling. Even if there is no struggle, there's always concern about encouraging income, cutting back on expenses and surviving until the situation is more favorable for business. Having run a number of small businesses before building WORKetc, I understand this all to well and project management software is key.
But it is always more than just weathering the storm. You want to come out of this recession flying!
Staying ahead of the game (or at least, staying in the game!) means working harder, but it also means thinking smarter. With a calm, cool attitude and a mindset of seeing what you can do to make sure your business survives without giving into panicked worry, you'll be there to greet new customers when the situation picks up.
Here are six ways to shore the supports of your small business so that it can weather the tough times - and make it through the storms - and I'll be straight up here, it all loops back to using WORKetc. Fundamentally you need to put in place systems and work toward automating those systems.
- Pay
close attention to accurate billing. When times are good, business
owners often wave off small charges, round down when billing to be nice
with clients, or let slip a few forgotten minutes that didn't make the
first invoice. WORKetc's timesheet software helps you easily tighten up loose operations so
you can make sure that detailed timesheets are carefully filled in to
capture every bit of revenue you can.
- Stay on top of
your accounts payable. Don't wait to bill clients, as they may not
always be able to pay if you are lenient with payment terms. Try to
implement deposit or retainer policies to avoid spending time (and
wasting money) chasing late payers. Even better, with WORKetc, you can
monitor accounts payable in real time and auto generate reminder
notices.
- Monitor profits and losses carefully. Sometimes
taking a loss can lead to opportunities, but sometimes adjusting
operations creates better profitability. Analyze project expenses as
well, to see which types of projects you should focus on most (or
least).
- Pursue leads - and manage them properly with a
detailed sales management software. Very often, business owners don't
pursue interested consumers effectively or often enough, and that means
lost sales. Sometimes the person has a question and just the answer
makes that consumer a customer.
- Help customers help
themselves. The more accessible your customer support, the happier your
customers will be - but you can reduce support and service costs by
encouraging customers to use self-serve support so they can get fast
answers and you can save money.
Follow these 5 6 strategies and your business will surely be in a better position to really take advantage of the good times when they come rolling around again.