Grow Business During The “Slow” Times
One of our favorite tactics to encourage business growth is diversifying your product line. This can have particular significance if your business is subject to cycles. Many times business owners won't get creative until they "have to" – usually when their costs are exceeding their profits and they are staring at some tough times ahead. I'm never surprised by the number of business executives who fail to deal with problems head-on, hoping instead that they will somehow solve themselves. Truth is they never do. When you are accountable for the business line (or the entire business itself) – why wait? Do it now! For example:
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a midwest scuba store owner who diversified their business by taking on ski rental and equipment sales. Both are outdoor businesses, but they have two different business cycles; this helps him smooth out his revenue during the course of the year
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a photographer who specializes in wedding and graduaiton photos changed his market position to include other types of protratue (specificially, pets). While most of his business still comes in the Spring and Summer, he now has a position that allows him to specialize and reposition his services durign the other parts of the year.
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most nursuries find that their slowest times were the winter months. In fact, many nurseries will "close down" until the growing season begins again. However, one east coast nursery expanded their product and service offerings, and purchased a stump grinder and advertises stump removal services during the winter months. And while that has helped to bring in some extra revenue during the slow months, who do you think is building a lead list for new trees and shrubbery for the Spring?
The point is, you can't always rely on "the economy to turn around" or for someone else to figure it out for you. You need to own it. And while you can benefit from getting outside help and perspective, you might just need to schedule some quiet time away from the business to stop and think about your business – what does it need? What can you do to start growing your business – today?
Time to get CREATIVE!!
Brainstorm For Business Success
An engineering lab client regularly brainstorms with customers and even prospective clients, as part of new product development.?? In fact, one such session resulted in a design simplification – saving them over 70% on their manufacturing costs for a particular part.? Going out of your way to establish rapport with your customers, and regularly communicating 
with them, can pay huge dividends.? Doing so has never been easier than it is today, with tools such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.?? Establishing a professional presence for your company on each of these will enable you to attract interested people to your company.
Don’t want to have a brainstorming session in-person?? Not a problem, if you use tools like GoToWebinar and Freemind.? GoToWebinar enables you to set up a web-based meeting for up to 1,000 participants, allowing everyone to interact as if they were in the same room.? Adding Freemind to the mix allows the Moderator (or an assistant) to capture the free flow of ideas as they come in, and display them on each participant’s computer screen.? In this way, you can literally have people from all over the world participate in the event.? If you don’t want to pay for the service, you can use a service like DimDim and host smaller brainstorming sessions.
This idea can apply to any business – the question is will you apply it?
