I was watching the 6pm news last night, and heard a story about the impact small businesses have on the job market. It related: how small businesses generate 60-80% of all new jobs and are at the heart of our economy, how a recession would impact small businesses, and, again, how much small businesses impact the economy- crazy circle talk!
They highlighted a small business owner in the NE somewhere who owns a gourmet food shop called Garlic & Oil. She sells mid to high-end gourmet food items. When the reporter asked her what issues she was dealing with, she listed: higher utility bills, higher delivery costs, higher product costs, and fewer customers. When the reporter asked her what she was going to do, she said (in this order):
- Let go of her part time staff and work more herself-to cut costs
- Open up on Sundays- adding another day to her already 6 day work week-to be more available
- Somehow, someway get more people to come to her store- she needs more foot traffic. (Can you say, demand generation? )
She indicated she had about 12 weeks left (if things didn’t improve) before she would have to shut down her business.
Couple of thoughts- this was an interesting view of the “conversation going on in the heads of the small business owners.”
Her first reaction to pressure was- try to cut costs (overhead, and other costs.) Her second was to increase availability- which, if she was online, wouldn’t matter. Her third idea was to generate more demand to save her business- “more foot traffic.”
Obviously, this is a single business owner, however, there will likely be a TON of TSB’s that begin to fail due to the “recession.”If we could somehow begin to save them from failure- by using our services- we would be Heroes! Can you say Bold and Audacious?
I’m not sure how we would get the word out, but I literally wanted to call this women last night and say, “You need some help generating demand and using additional channels for selling, get and use partners etc., and last but not least you need our software to make all this easy- and cost effective.”
Food for thought!!
While a recession hurts everyone, it can actually be a boon for the CRM industry. I’ve weathered a recession in this industry before and have found that when money tightens up, entreprenuers are more and more focused on taking care of their customers.
I would never wish an economic downturn on any of us, but I do sincerely feel Infusion is in a position to help those struggling to keep their doors open. Every call, visit and click matters more than ever, and the need to capitalize on every relationship is even more important when money is tight.
I may sound like I’m just blowing smoke here, but I’ve been in this industry for over 20 years and truly believe, now more than ever, we have a mission to help small business owners survive and thrive. I’m so proud and pleased to be a part of the new Infusion Certified Consultants program. I know it will dramatically increase our reach into the TSB community.
Comment by Sharon Randall — January 24, 2008 @ 12:12 pm
Interesting comment Sharon. Anita Campbell doesn’t seem to be too worried about a recession either. Check out her comments here:
http://www.smallbiztrends.com/2008/01/why-i-am-not-worried-about-recession.html
Comment by Tyler Garns — January 24, 2008 @ 11:34 pm