The economic downturn is here, and it’s not going away anytime soon. You can’t ignore it and assume that things will get back to normal eventually; you have to start acting now.
In this article, we’ll show you how to survive the economic downturn by using a few basic business principles that have been around for years but are just as relevant today as they were then:
Prioritise your topline
- Focus on what’s most important.
- Prioritise your top line.
- Remember that everyone can’t be number one in everything.
- Focus on what you can control, not the external factors that are beyond your control (and don’t matter).
Innovate and create new things
Innovation is the key to survival. It doesn’t matter if you’re a business or an individual, innovation is something that will help you get through these tough economic times. Innovation does not only mean technology; it can also be in the form of new products and services or even business models.
Innovation is a continuous process that starts from within yourself and then moves to your team members and then finally outside into the marketplace. It’s not just about creating something new; it’s also about making your existing business processes more efficient so they run faster while still meeting customer needs at an affordable price point (if possible).
Put your people first
Your people are the most important asset of your company. They are your brand, culture, customers, investors and even your future. In this economy, you can’t afford to be without them.
Because everyone is looking for new job opportunities or leaving their current ones behind in search of greener pastures (or just because they don’t have a choice), it’s more important than ever that you keep your best employees around and make sure they’re happy with their jobs so they stay put and convince other people to join too!
It’s also crucial that you focus on building an amazing team that will do great things together as one unit rather than trying to accomplish everything yourself by yourself all day every day with no help from anyone else at all except maybe some interns who showed up last minute because they saw the job posting online late at night while drunk browsing sites like Monster or Zillow after having spent hours playing video games instead of studying for finals like normal college students should’ve done but didn’t because life sucks sometimes so why bother doing anything productive when there’s Netflix available 24/7 waiting for us?
Use technology to your advantage
- Use technology to your advantage.
- Improve efficiency, communication and security in your business.
- Create an improved customer experience.
Optimise your spending, but not at the cost of innovation
The most obvious way to survive the recession is to optimise your spending. In this case, “optimise” means that you focus on spending money on the things that matter the most and give up spending any on those that don’t.
Also Read: Winter for tech startups is here? Here’s how to deal with it
For example, if you’re a restaurant owner and you notice that your profit margins are declining, then it would make sense for you to cut back on advertising or marketing efforts until business improves again.
However, there’s another side of this equation as well, in order to optimise your spending and keep costs in check while still being able to grow during these difficult times, you need innovation.
The key here is understanding where exactly your company stands right now and what exactly it needs at this point in time. You should look at all expenditures as investments; much like with investing funds into stocks or bonds (or whatever), it’s important not only when but how much money gets invested into something before determining whether or not those investments were worthwhile ones!
So think carefully about how valuable each dollar spent actually was! If a particular expenditure didn’t deliver results out of proportion with its cost then maybe we shouldn’t have spent so much money there after all.
Focus on cash flow and balance sheet management
- Focus on cash flow and balance sheet management
- Manage cash flow and inventory
- Use technology to improve cash flow
- Use technology to improve inventory management
- Use technology to improve your financial reporting
- Use technology to improve your credit management
Do what you can do the best to survive the economic downturn
- Focus on your strengths
- Have a strong team
- Keep your costs down
- Be flexible in the face of change and uncertainty; if you don’t know what to do, just keep doing what you’re doing for now (or go back to school)
- Have a plan for when things get better again
Final thoughts
To sum up, the only way to survive an economic downturn is to focus on your strengths and do what you do best.
If you’re an expert at something, make sure that your company does it well. If you have good people working for you, keep them happy and productive. Remember that just because times are hard doesn’t mean they always will be, so don’t give up on your dreams!
–
Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic
Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page
Image credit: Canva Pro
The post How startups can weather the economic downturn appeared first on e27.