Tips for running a business when the times are tough
Posted by Markie on 03/27/09 in Business
Just about everyone thinks that they have the answer or the key to open up the door for business people when things get bad. People have their ideas, and most of them are complicated. What you need to know is that when things get tough, it is time to get back to the basics. You can do a lot more good in running a business with a simpler plan. What you have to get back to is taking care of the people who make your business go. This means your employees and more importantly, your customers.
Taking care of your employees means not only rewarding them for good performance, but also letting them know that you care about their overall well being. You can do this by going with wellness incentive programs, which will encourage employees to take care of their medical situation in an efficient fashion. This will show that you mean what you say, and they will appreciate that.
In addition, you will want to go with some sort of loyalty programs to keep customers coming back for more. The key here is giving them a reason to choose you, and it can help in building a long-term relationship. This means that they will be likely to give you business when things get going well, too.
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Tom Wharton | Apr 6, 2009 | Reply
Ah yes, the whole KISS method. Keeping things simple and going back to the basics is as important now as it has ever been. It’s easy to lose focus and make things harder than they need to be.
Javier Finch | Apr 6, 2009 | Reply
Sometimes businesses focus more on their employees than they do on their customers. It is a recipe for disaster. I’m glad you see that it is the other way around.
Ian Burton | Apr 6, 2009 | Reply
I like customer loyalty programs. The pizza place I order from does a thing where every 12 pizzas I order, I get half off the next one. I never order from anyone else, so it must work!
Nelson Smith | Apr 6, 2009 | Reply
So many businesses just try to make a quick profit on a one time deal. This author makes a good point about how the businesses that survive view things in a much different way.
Jeff Hart | Apr 6, 2009 | Reply
It is funny how obvious it seems that businesses would recognize that long term success relies on making customers loyal by rewarding them. Yet how often do we see the opposite of that? Look at cell phone companies. They only care about getting new customers to sign contracts.