Mine Your Own Business

Communication With Your Customers

There was a recent article from USA Today that provides some insight on how any small business might increase their business. The article begins by describing the scenario of a struggling new small business and first suggested that the new owner contact SCORE. If you've never heard of SCORE, the article describes it as a kind of Peace Corps of entrepreneurs that give free counseling and advice to small business owners. If you visit their site you can also sign up for SCORE eNews and SCORE Expert Answers.

So what advice did SCORE give this struggling new business? The advice was simply ask your customers or prospective customers what they want and give it to them (within reason of course). You can read the whole article for the specific ways they suggest to find out what they want and you can probably come up with a few more of your own. One other excellent idea suggested is to find out why you've lost customers. This will not only provide useful information so you don't lose customers in the future but also might entice some of these customers back since you've shown an interest in their thoughts.

 

Ready to Rebound?

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article recently that questioned whether it was time for small businesses to consider whether the economy is starting to rebound. The rough economy is a topic we've frequently posted about in the past and this article brings up some excellent points. It begins by describing how many small businesses have been playing defense mainly by reducing expenditures and reducing labor expenses using a mix of layoffs, salary reductions, and simply not hiring. When to start restoring expenditures and your employee situation is a tough call, but when a small business feels the time is right in their particular market what should your new offense be?

The article stresses that there will be certain advantages for small businesses when the economy does start to rebound. One example is there will be a real opportunity to hire some top notch employees due to the current employment situation. The final portion of the article reminds small business owners that due to the recession their particular industry has undoubtedly changed, so any new offense must take these changes into account.

It was a thought provoking article and you can read the whole thing here. So what about your industry, is it time to play defense for awhile longer or is it time to rebound?