Toshiba Phone Systems and More

I read a blog today about how plant seed sales are expected to grow by 25% this year because of the economy and people’s desire to get back to basics. Small business too has the opportunity to do the same-get back to the basics.  I attended a seminar of about 35 small business owners last week and the issues are the same across many different businesses.

One resounding theme was that there is tremendous opportunity as well.

Opportunity for available talent, that a year ago was unheard of,

Opportunity for acquisitions,

Opportunity to get back to the basics of good business practices.

Now is a time to look at our businesses to cut waste, NOT to stop spending, because as one of the business owners pointed out that will only perpetuate the problem, but an opportunity to run a leaner organization.  One of the speakers said, “Sales hide all sins.”  That’s very true, when sales are up you can overlook a lot of things. Now is a time to take a deeper look at your business so that it is lean and mean for when the economy turns. It’s a great opportunity to take time to prepare your business, get your systems in place, fine tune your  processes so you are ready, so that you are still standing when others may have fallen.

Another recurring theme of the day was that when business is good, people tend to be isolated and don’t need anyone (except their customers of course) but when times get tougher people tend to need each other more and we are seeing a surge in good old fashion networking. Competitors are even helping each other out -as good will lives in a down economy- that to me was nice to hear- human nature of the small business owner-to help each other.

The small business community will get us out of the mess that the corporate giants have gotten us into. We spent the entire day sharing our pains, strategies, challenges and successes and I came away from the day with a renewed sense of hope in the knowledge that we are not alone in our challenges and that through positive support of each other and a vision to see the opportunities and not just the pains, we will not only survive but will thrive through this.

If anyone is interested in a community of small business owners preparing to thrive- click here to learn about the next session and fuel the small business movement to turn the economy around.

We work daily with our customers to help them utilize technology and strive to be not their vendor but their trusted business communications partner- all of our customers are small businesses we want to help thrive. If you think we can help you- give us a call 203-649-6405 we are all in this together and will need to work together to get out of it.

With the economy tightening up, small business owners have the luxury of being able to be flexible in the marketing efforts.  Larger companies can’t always be as flexible and respond as quickly to changes that need to be made. We were talking with our business coach yesterday about  this. When the environment you have been operating changes you can’t continue to do the same things and expect to achieve the same results. What’s the definition of insanity? “Do the same things over and over again expecting a different result.”  The numbers game just got a lot bigger. Is it harder to find new business? Absolutely but not impossible -you just have to be creative, respond quickly and change your thinking. I have been spending the last several days learning about social networking, trying to figure out a way to make this work. Working on SEO, partnering with other small businesses who we can forge a mutually beneficial relationship with. That means  re thinking everything we are doing on a daily basis. We are refusing to participate in this recession. One other thing you need to do is to stay POSITIVE. All the doom and gloom portrayed by the media is only adding to the worsening economy. We have new leadership but we all need to do OUR part. The  responsibility for your success lays within you. Think outside the box, be creative and innovative in your marketing efforts, test and measure, and move forward. I saw a good blog posting -  on growing your service business and it got me thinking, we are all in this together and can help each other out to more prosperous times. What are you doing differently to generate new business or hold on to your existing business?