7
Key Business Survival Tips
By Dennis Sommer (www.dennissommer.com)
These survival tips show how leading organizations successfully
ride the dramatic ups and downs of the business cycle.
Surviving in a down business cycle and emerging as a smarter,
leaner market leader requires an organization to cut costs
wisely, while keeping strategic business units strong
and retaining the best performing (valuable) employees.
Past experience shows that this simple strategy is
very difficult to achieve when your organization faces
declining cash flow, reduced budget, and the most common
management cost cutting tactic, “staff cuts”.
The following survival tips have been proven time and
again by the market leaders.
1. Stay Focused
Stay focused on your core competencies (what you do
well). Determine which business units or products are
your bread and butter and focus your efforts in that
area.
2. Smart Expansion
When evaluating expansion into new markets, only evaluate
the portion of the market space that applies to your
organization. Do not over estimate potential opportunities
based on the entire market.
3. Do Not Release Early
Make sure the product release is at the appropriate
time. Do not try and create a market for your product
before the customer market is ready.
4. Build On Your Strengths
Expand your business based on your organization and
product strengths. Carefully plan your strategy and
execute at the appropriate time.
5. Exploit Competitor Weaknesses
Target and exploit your competitors weaknesses.
6. Clean House
Always focus on reducing expenses and the bottom line
whether is good times or bad. Always challenge your
staff and keep the best performers.
7. Vendor Management
Review all your vendor contracts at least once a year,
or better yet, ever quarter. Keep an eye out for unnecessary
expenditures and erroneous invoices.
About The Author
- Dennis Sommer
Dennis
Sommer is the founder and CEO of Executive Business Advisers,
a management consulting firm helping senior executives
maximize both sales and profit growth. Dennis specializes
in strategic planning, sales, marketing and operations
performance improvement. Dennis is a highly
sought after author, keynote and seminar speaker on
sales, leadership and business best practices.
Contact Dennis at www.executivebusinessadvisers.com
or www.dennissommer.com
.
|