Profit Manager: 10 Tips On How To Stay Profitable Throughout The Recession

Stay positive – believe in your products, company and staff and above all believe in yourself and your abilities. The recession is nothing more than a business cycle and things will get better.

Identify all the associated costs. You may be the most fantastic sales person in the world, but if all your costs are spiralling out of control, no matter how hard you sell, your bottom line will never amount to much.

Research all the inexpensive ways you can market your business. There are loads of tips and advice available on-line, pick those that sound most suitable to your business and try them out 4 to 5 times to assess how successful they have been. When a business is strapped for cash, marketing comes out of the budget when in fact lowering other expenses would be better. Examples of low cost marketing are: Network on-line and off-line, sending articles to local relevant publications (letters section are often a good idea and free), start blogging.

Gain an understanding of you company accounts. If this is a weak area then reading up on the subject may be a good idea. You can also download Profit Manager for free which will present your accounts to you in a user friendly manner both in numbers and graphs.

Review your price structure – giving something away for free is becoming an ever increasing way of marketing, especially if your product is sold over the Internet. Your products might also be perceived as inferior quality if they are priced too low so now could be a good time to put the price up and review periodically.

Reassess your product mix and analyse your costs. If you use Sage as your Accounting package then download Profit Manager for free to help you in this process.

Stay focused – don’t flitter from task to task. Follow through and complete your tasks.

When things are going well, put some money aside – remember it’s not what you earn, it’s what you keep.

Ask for advice/support. Places like your local business link branch or council are great resources and they are free. At times like these, these organisations have a wealth of information at hand on anything from funding through to finding some inexpensive staffing or training solutions.

Profit Manager