five business mistakes

Dread and Panic
Don’t panic, because if you do you will make more mistakes. Panicking will only aggravate the situation by leading you towards the other mistakes on this list. Turn off your TV and radio. Stop listening to news once in a while. The constant doom and gloom coming from the talking heads will fog your mind and you may deviate from the road to your success. Turning your business into ‘safe mode’ out of fear will not yield you fruitful results. Instead of panicking identify your weaknesses, learn from your mistakes and adapt to the changes which will help you to overcome these turbulent times.

Fire Talent
Salaries are obvious expenses. With the demand for your products and services may be declining, dismissing employees may seem inevitable. Are they really? Trained employees are an asset to the company and if you fire them, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to get them back when your business picks up. Talent is the most important driving force of innovation. Though, cutting back on people, especially really smart, high-priced people, is a quick way to cut costs, however, in the long run it may cause irreparable damage. Hence, do everything you can to retain your pool of talented, enthusiastic workers.

Cost Cutting
Cutting expenses and lowering prices are necessary. However, decreasing prices to increase sales during recession is a bad idea. Discounts and sales to some extent are acceptable but slashing prices as a selling strategy will harm your business in the long run. It depreciates your product or services. Discounts will increase sales for a period of time but they’ll flatten again and you will be in a vicious cycle of constantly lowering your prices to chase those sales.
Never crop your marketing budget. If you want to generate business, you have to market. In fact, now is the best time to advertise to your business. Thus, review your marketing plans to make sure it’s effective. Economizing on technology could be equally devastating. To survive in today’s competitive market, keep yourself visible online. Moreover, innovation and technology are proportional. Thus minimizing technology will minimize your chance to innovate.

Change Suppliers & Vendors
Building a good rapport is very important in business, even with suppliers and vendors. It takes time to build a good relationship, throwing away that relationship in bad times to save few bucks is not a good idea. Never get enticed away the cheaper rates of other vendors which might result in compromise on the quality of supplies and services. Also judge the reliability of the supplier before buying their product. Even if everything seems ‘okay’, talk to your current supplier before abandoning them; they might compete.

Build Wall Instead of Bridge
Companies quit globalization. Emerging markets are sources of generation new revenue and acquiring talent. Thus spend few extra bucks and expand globally. Now is the time to build bridges and reach out to others. Building walled castles and retreating into it will not help.
Successfully driving your business through a down economy is not a child’s play. You have to be extra careful to avoid making basic mistakes and take advantage of the present scenario to strengthen your business. Winners always emerge out of recessions unscathed!