Posted by Ashley
Did you know that 61% of US small business owners predict their businesses won’t survive the anticipated recession? That’s over half of the small companies in business today!
And we get it, as a small business ourselves, the threat of recession is overwhelming and scary. If you haven’t already, check out our free downloadable eBook on how to use your marketing strategy to help you survive and thrive through the recession (and we hope our eBook will offer you a little peace of mind, too!).
We don’t know if a recession will begin or when. The good news is that means there’s time to be proactive in making a game plan for how your business can make it through this recession and the next. But as we head deeper into 2023, marketing might not be the only key to your business’s survival.
Let’s take a look at four options for boosting your business’s health.
Get Creative with Cashflow
This might seem like the most obvious solution to surviving the coming year, but getting a little creative (and we don’t mean illegal!) with your cash flow might require some out-of-the-box thinking. A great place to start is identifying if any recession-proof or evergreen aspects of your business can turn into either passive or active revenue. This will look different for every company but might include eBooks or eCourses available for purchase on your website that can generate a secondary revenue source. It might look like having other digital download materials that customers can pay for on your website. All of these options are, again, going to look different for each business. Still, identifying goods, you can produce once, costing little to nothing to source, and providing a passive revenue could be a game changer for your business.
Finding a recession-proof aspect of your business might be trickier, but it will be incredibly healthy for your business as something reliable to stand on in a shaky economy. If your business is service-based, knowing what services will carry you through any kind of economic upheaval will give you a better idea of where to invest your budget, advertising, and training.
Lastly, sometimes creative help comes in the form of a business loan. There are many different types of business loans, and while they aren’t a perfect solution for everyone, there is probably one that’s right for your business right now. A loan now that can be saved for a rainy day might be the thing that keeps your business going in any kind of financial crisis to come.
Use Technology to Lower Your Overhead
Lately, there’s been some media attention given to certain large corporations over employees not wanting to return to the office. However, since the dawn of the pandemic and working from home, many employees have found that they are far more productive and have a better work-life balance when working from home. You would think employers would want to capitalize on that since, in appearance, it would lower their costs by eliminating large offices, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. While this is most likely a topic for another day, the refusal to allow employees to work in a way that is better for their work life and home life is more of a commentary on late-stage capitalism and our culture’s obsession with looking the part.
That’s to say, just because it’s the way we’ve always worked doesn’t mean it has to be how we continue to work. Remote work is just as well performing (if not better) than working from an office or cubicle. Flexible hours have been shown to increase productivity because it allows employee to work during hours when their natural cognitive function is at its peak. And while not every job allows for work-from-home situations, there are still tons of tech out there to make your employees’ lives better and more efficient.
Now is a great time to do a tech update for your business. Automate what you can now, update the tech you do use to better-performing options and look at how your employees work best to help you eliminate unnecessary costs in the future.
Take Advantage of Government Credits And Grants
Are you taking advantage of all of the tax credits your business is eligible for? Before we get to the 2023 tax season, make sure you know what tax credits to look for! This is a great resource to get you started on looking into your eligibility or check out this link as well for the US Treasury Dept. If you don’t think you’re getting all the tax credits you’re eligible for, consider consulting an expert in small business accounting to ensure you’re getting the tax breaks you deserve.
Did you know that the US government offers Small Business Grants? Many of these grants are easy to apply for, and can be a massive help in setting your business up for financial success in the future. Many of these grants are available to businesses owned by women or people of color, but even if that doesn’t apply to you, there are still grants available to take advantage of! To learn more about these grants, follow this link.
Overhaul Your 2023 Marketing Strategy
Once you’ve done everything else on this list, it will be much easier for you to take stock of the state of your business. And once you know where you’re at, you can make a better, more effective plan for where you’re going. This is where taking a look at your marketing plan can be a big help.
Often, in the face of economic uncertainty, businesses will do away with their marketing plan and budget altogether. This is actually a huge mistake! Marketing is essential to the success of your business. You need clients and customers, and in order to find them, you need marketing. The reality is those clients and customers need you too, and without the right marketing plan to find your ideal client, you’ll find yourself lost in the crowd.
But to succeed, you need to figure out what the right marketing plan for you is! This is why we recommend looking into the other steps first. Because once you’ve gotten honest about the health of your business, it’s a whole lot easier to know what kind of marketing tools to use. We also recommend consulting with a marketing agency to make your new plan.
Agencies are the most cost-effective way to get your marketing needs met. Not only do agencies specialize in keeping up with the most effective ways to market, but they also have the time and resources to put into researching which of those ways of marketing will work best for your clients. From there, you can make a revised marketing plan that aligns with your business’s goals and the reality of your current state.
No matter what the future holds, remember that plenty of businesses have survived worse economic realities than the ones we see coming today. If those businesses can do it, so can you. All it takes is a plan and putting that plan into action.
If you’re ready to adapt your 2023 marketing plan to work better for the health and longevity of your business, we’d love to partner with you now, and help you grow and thrive in the future, no matter what the economy may look like. Get in touch today.
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