Boost Your Bottom Line in Tough Times

by Leslie Truex

Business Skills Articles

Published on this site: December 15th, 2010 - See more articles from this month

Sometimes in entrepreneurship, when sales start to fall and income drops, we start looking for magic keys and secrets to solve the problem. Unfortunately, seeking secrets (that usually don't exist anyway) takes away from your business and ignores the knowledge and assets you do have. While it is important to continue your education by learning new things, when your business is down it can be faster to work with what you've got. Here are tips to boost your bottom line when it starts to sag:

1. Inventory your assets. It's easy to think that if your business slumps that something is wrong and therefore you should do something else. But if you have an existing business, you have money waiting to be made if you take the right action. It starts by making a list of your assets. Your assets include everything related to your business such as your products, reports, intellectual property, mailing list, domain name, etc. If you have multiple income streams, you'll want to make a list of assets in each.
   
   
2. What is making the most money right now? Where is the money currently coming from? Affiliate sales? Services? Make a list of all your income from the highest to the lowest. Add a note that indicates how that money is being generated such as article marketing or recent publicity.
   
   
3. Focus on what's working. Once you've determined what sources are making the most money and how, double your efforts to generate more income. If one article a day is driving traffic that is leading to sales, write two articles a day. If customer referrals are bringing in the most new clients, develop and implement a referral plan to bring in more.
   
   
4. Drop what isn't working. When it comes to creating income quickly, you can't waste time on projects that don't work. That doesn't mean you can't work on them later. It just means you need to put all your effort into the projects that are proven right now. If you're not sure you want to return to a project, perhaps you can sell it.
   
   
5. Bundle and sell to your current customers. While focused effort on what is working is important, sometimes it helps to have a special offer to jump start or create income fast. This strategy is great for a boost of cash, but is generally a one-time event. Gather the assets that you have such as reports, PLR, MRR or any other products and package them into a special offer. If you have a service business, offer a discount to existing customers that purchase extended or upgraded services. In this case, you want to appeal to people who've already bought from you and trust you as they are the best prospects for buying again. Let your customers know you'll extend the offer to anyone they refer as a way to generate new customers.

When the going gets tough, the tough go back to basics and refocus their efforts on actions that bring results. The fastest way to do that is to use what you already have such as your products and services, and existing customer base.

Leslie Truex is the author of The Work-At-Home Success Bible (Adams Media).
She has been telecommuting and running home businesses for over 15 years and
helping others to work at home in jobs or home businesses since 1998. Get work-at-home jobs and other resources with her free newsletter at http://www.WorkAtHomeSuccess.com.