Pretty much every business or company hits highs and lows throughout their time in operations. This concept is often referred to as the "feast or famine" cycle. But what exactly does that mean for a small business owner? Put simply, as a small business owner or entrepreneur, you will inevitably have time when sales are going well and you see a steady stream of clients or customers coming through your door. At times like these, it's easy to get complacent or fall under a false sense of security and and become numb to the potential threats on the horizon. As with every rise, there is almost inevitably a fall. Or rather, a shortfall in this sense. The odds of a business, especially a small business or new entrepreneur, only ever thriving and never hitting episodes of slow traffic and production are astronomically low. Virtually every business will hit periods in which new leads, sales, or revenues start to slow down or halt altogether. Now you may be asking yourself how a business could continue to survive in these times of slow foot traffic and sales. The answer comes down to a few key components. Which I've listed below.
Allocation Of Resources
This applies to both your existing & future resources. Understanding the needs of your business and what it takes to keep it operational can help you better understand how you should manage or "allocate" your time or resources. By correctly placing funds where they need to be to serve a specific purpose either now, or in the future can help you to ensure that when things do eventually slow down or your business hits a "lull" period, you will still have adequate funding in place to support operational costs such as staff pay, utilities, and other overhead costs. The term "resources" certainly applies to more than just revenues. It also applies to personnel. Know exactly where, who, and how to disperse your staff can ultimately improve the overall efficiency of your business model. Over-reaching or over-expanding your business beyond the threshold in which it can support itself will almost always lead to disaster when the market slows down and your overhead exceeds your production for an extended period of time.
A Strong Foundation
A Plan Forward
Once you have the three concepts mentioned above figured out, then it becomes far easier to sustain your business during the slow times. The reason for this being that during the high times of high volume sales or steady retention of clients, if you follow a well designed revenue allocation with efficient business practices, you will begin to Success is often just a by-product of a well-built business model being effectively utilized by competent people. There's no great secret or magic intuition that somehow guarantees success for a business. Anyone who attempts to pedal that notion to the masses is really just hoping to take advantage of an emotional charge in a crowd to build interest in their services. Taking advantage of the higher earning times and adequately using the revenues generated during that time is absolutely crucial to achieving continued success.
Equally, if not even more important than simply the base value of revenue generation is the leadership team or head of the business that oversees the day to day operations. Creating or hiring strong and effective leaders for your office help to keep everything in line with the vision or goals of your business. These key personnel will ultimately be the glue that holds the rest of your workplace together. Every business consists of different people, so it would be a poor business decision to only focus on the black and red numbers in the ledger. A good leader fully understands that businesses are made up of people and being able to connect, communicate, & motivate a group of employees is just as important as doing so with a customer. This human connection is one asset that can help hold a business together during hard times, and even when there's more bad news than good news to be shared with the office personnel. People follow people, and without good leadership it becomes highly unlikely that you and your business would be able to retain your employees during a slow period for your business operations.
So how can you best prepare yourself to guide your business to success? One proven method is to work with a Business Consultant or Coach to give your business model a thorough look through. Potentially finding any gaps in an otherwise solid infrastructure and guiding you through how to remedy those situations. At Budd Consolidated we're well versed in building successful businesses from the ground up. Infrastructure and business practices establishment are two things that we're well versed in at Budd Consolidated. If you'd to sit down with us and discuss how we can help you make and keep your business successful, simply click the button below to schedule your free discovery call!
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