It’s no news that the Nigerian economy is now in another round of recession, second time in the last 5 years and surviving is the first thing that every business owner is focused on right now. Competition is always there, so offering VALUE to the customers is something that will make you survive. Only the best and more valuable business from the customer’s perspective will survive.
You too can survive, here is how!
1. Be Unique: Yes, be unique, and do things that nobody else is doing. Always have a bunch of business ideas at your hand and start implementing them to differentiate from your competitors. Your current and future customers will start valuing this.
2. Be positive and honest: You don’t want to be a negative and deceitful person even if the conditions are not promising. Remember that your negativity and lies can easily be detected by your customers. And, you don’t want this to happen. Your honesty will be rewarded by your customers.
3. Deliver everything that you promise: You want to be the person with credibility, so deliver everything that you have promised.
4. Increase your expectations and work to achieve them: Higher expectations will increase your motivation and persistence to achieve them.
5. Focus on your target market: Don’t spend your energy and time on customers who are not your customers. Focus with all of your energy on your target market and learn to adjust to changes when they come.
6. Continue to improve each business process: Your business processes are something that brings results for your business. Work on continuous improvement of them. You will save money and better satisfy your customers.
7. Document each improvement process: You want to repeat each success with your improvements efforts. So, document what you have done and use the same thing in the future.
8. Don’t cut costs on your marketing efforts: I know that the easiest way is to cut costs on marketing. But, instead of cutting them, try to improve your marketing campaigns.
9. Think about costs but don’t forget to increase sales: Combine your efforts in for decreasing costs with increasing sales. It is a winning combination.
10. Each month look at your break-even point: How much you need to sell to break even? This is an important question for you.
11. Look at your inventory levels and try to optimize them: Inventories can be a large part of your small business costs. You need to work on their optimization.
12. Maximize the power of referral: Using this tactic, you will increase your customer base and the income for your small business.
13. Never try to compete with large companies on their best competitive elements: You are a small business and if you want to succeed, find the niche where you will be the strongest on the market.
14. Never stop to find new opportunities: There will always be new opportunities for you. Simply grab them.
15. Lastly, Motivate you and your employees.
What should matter to every business owner is how to survive and stay afloat their various competitive market at this second phase of recession. With these tips, you can.
Author: Doris Aniakor