How Do
Small Businesses Lose Money
and 5 Ways You Can Prevent It.By Herman Drost
A few weeks before Christmas of 2003, Google suddenly
changed its formula for ranking web sites. Sites which for
years had relied on Google traffic to make consistent
sales, suddenly lost their rankings. Many site owners were
very upset because it was the only marketing method they
were using.
How could they have prevented this?
5 ways to instantly lose business and how you can prevent
it.
1. One product - if you have only one product or service
that accounts for most of your sales, you make yourself
vulnerable to your competition. Your competition may
undercut
your prices, your product or service may lose it's demand.
Create multiple products or services that people desire.
If
you then lose one you still have others to fall back on.
2. One method of promotion - if you use only one method of
promotion to produce sales, that suddenly don't work
anymore, you can easily be out of business. The promotion
method you have been using for years that generated
most of your sales, may stop working.
Use several strategies to sell your products. Be sure to
test what ones are the most effective. Don't waste your
time on techniques that don't work because they can be
large time and money wasters.
3. One client - it's dangerous to have one client that
generates most of your business. By becoming dependent on
one client you leave yourself open to great
disappointment.
What if that client suddenly goes elsewhere, closes or
sells his business?...you are left with nothing.
Safeguard your business by always acquiring more clients.
You think you need to immediately attend to one client's
wishes. If they trust that your business is the best,
they will be willing to wait. It will also create the
impression that your product or service is in high demand.
4. One employee - if you have one employee, that is
crucial
to running your business, who then leaves, or gets sick,
you are potentially leaving yourself open to trouble in
the future.
Never leave one person fulfilling any critical or key role
of your business. Have none or two, but never one. That
way, if you need to let lose one, you can.
5. One person business - if you are the sole person
running
your business, that is supporting your family and you get
sick or injured (hopefully not), you will have no income.
You then easily use up all your savings, lose your assets
and become severely distressed.
This is not a happy scenario.
The best way to safeguard yourself is to create multiple
income streams (read my article: "8 Ways to Earn Passive
Income" ). You
can
build another income stream as you
work your main
business.
A good example of this would be to create a web site that
promotes an affiliate program. The beauty of affiliate
programs is that you can set them up to work
automatically,
leaving you time to run your business.
When you have created one successful program, multiply
your
success by creating others.
Having more than one product, promotion method, client,
employee or income stream insures yourself against
business failure, boosts future income and can lead to a
happier, less stressful life.
| Subscribe
FREE to
Marketing
Tips Newsletter
NEW
Ebook
101 Highly Effective
Strategies to Promote Your Web Site
Hosting
from $30/year
|
