Recession-proof your small business

Now is the time to protect your business from the threat of recession. To get through tough times you need to plan ahead and make sure you have all the essential tools for running your business. But it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. If you focus your energies on the things you can control, your business can thrive even in a worsening economy.

Get online

No one could have predicted the effects of the current pandemic, with bricks and mortar stores all over the world forced to shut down. So what do you do? The quickest way to get around lockdown is to sell online. You don’t have to be a tech nerd to get set up with e-commerce. There are plenty of online ordering platforms that take only minutes to set up and connect with your current inventory and customer list. If you use Clover POS, there are plenty of online ordering solutions available from the Clover app market (More Tools). If you feel like you need to get online now and you aren’t comfortable with technology, Wix is an incredibly user-friendly platform where you can set up beautiful websites and start selling online in a matter of hours.

Know your customers

Do you know who your customers are and more importantly, do you have a way to contact them? Loyal customers are the backbone of any business. They are the ones you can rely on to keep coming back and buying from you. But because they are so reliable, it is easy to get complacent about them. Have you ever had a regular customer who disappeared all of a sudden, and you thought to yourself “where did they go?” A loyalty program is essential for any small business. Loyalty can be nurtured by making customers feel extra special and reminding them you are still here. With special promotions you can reach out to them during slow periods and keep them informed of new offers. Make sure that your loyalty and marketing tools extend to online and in-store and your customers will help sustain you through rough times for the economy.

Take payments

People guard their hard-earned cash in times of recession. So you need to make payment as easy as possible and reduce friction when customers do think about buying. Make sure you have access to payment card processing and payment providers like PayPal and ApplePay for fast check-out online.

Build a reserve

The surest way to protect your business from recession is with recurring monthly revenue.  Amazon are the masters of this strategy, but any small business can now run a Prime-style subscription-based loyalty program. In return for VIP treatment with special rewards and benefits, customers pay a subscription recurring each month. Knowing you have secure income coming in from your loyal customers takes a huge anxiety out of your life, helps create a reserve of cash in difficult times and lets you concentrate on strengthening other areas of the business. With recurring payments you can eliminate those steep dips in revenue that panic business owners, giving you security to plan ahead to better times!