These past few years have been tough for business owners. Between COVID, lockdowns forcing businesses to close, and the ever-growing competition for customers’ dollars, business owners have had a really tough time these past few years.
And in 2023, it’s not going to get any easier.
A recession is coming, and it’s on everyone’s mind. In fact, if you’re like the 70% of other business owners who expect a recession around the corner, you’ll know that you need to start planning now in order to survive the 2023 recession.
Sure, some businesses can thrive during a recession, but the cold hard truth is that unless you are in the minority, 2023 just might be the hardest year your business has ever seen.
But there is hope.
You see, while most businesses will be trying everything they can to keep themselves afloat to survive the recession, you can strategically use technology to recession-proof your business.
Here are just a few things technology can do to help your business to survive the 2023 recession:
• Streamline business processes with software automation
• Create stable, predictable income streams
• Add more value to your customers without costing your company
Streamline business processes with software automation
Even the simplest of businesses requires various processes that must be done regularly in order to survive the 2023 recession.
Many of these processes require labor – and as many business owners know – labor can be one of the biggest expenses for a business.
An expense that must be carefully looked at in turbulent times like a recession.
But, labor expenses are a necessity for any business, right? Well, the truth may actually surprise you…
Many business processes – with the right software – can be automated. The options are endless, but a few common use cases include:
Shorten the sales process
Making new sales is the lifeblood of any business. If you’re not bringing in new leads and sales, then your business is not going to survive this upcoming recession.
If you’re using tech strategically, you can automate and streamline the sales process.
From gathering leads and pre-qualifying to following up and closing the sale, all it takes is some simple software to take care of the sales process for you. That means you can spend less time dealing with unqualified prospects and more time with new business that is going to move the needle for you.
Fulfill orders
What if you could click a button and instantly deliver your product or service to your customer? Maybe you have a service-based company. Within minutes, you could schedule a time to perform your service and have your employees ready to complete that job.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
How about automating the payment process, sending a thank you message, giving a coupon, asking for a referral, and even scheduling a follow-up for next time. All of that done for you – automatically.
Or if you sell products, you can keep track of inventory, process orders, generate shipping labels, and automatically do pretty much everything besides physically putting your products in a shipping container.
Automate administration duties
No owner or manager wants to stay late at the office so they can go over paperwork. Looking through budgets, managing scheduling, and running reports are necessary for any business that wants to run effectively.
These are all things that may seem mundane – but they could be the difference between surviving the 2023 recession and, well … having to get a job at the local Walmart.
I’m talking about getting a holistic view of your complete business – every single day or week – so you know where the choke points are, who your best customers are, and what you should be focusing on.
That sounds great, but doing all of this manually can be boring, expensive, and could lead to costly errors. After all, humans make errors sometimes.
That’s why you need to automate these tasks.
Software doesn’t make mistakes, it doesn’t get tired, and it doesn’t have a bad day. All you have to do is press ‘start’ and your admin tasks are done.
Subscriptions, up-selling to Create stable, predictable income streams
During a recession, fewer people are going to want to part with their money. Every time you make a sale, you have to overcome the customers’ friction of actually making the choice to spend their hard-earned money on your product or service.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you only had to sell to a customer once, instead of making a new sale every month?
Subscription models have been very popular with software as a service (SaaS) during the last decade. The idea of making a recurring income from a single customer is one of the easiest ways to continue having predictable, stable income every month.
With subscription models, customers are used to just paying for a service automatically every month. This is crucial in order to survive the 2023 recession.
Think about it…
If you have a video streaming subscription like Netflix, you probably don’t even think about paying your bill every month. The subscription fee just automatically comes out of your bank account without you even thinking about it.
But what if Netflix had to ask you every single month if you wanted to continue? Every month, you’d have to make the decision to continue purchasing the subscription. And that gives a customer an easy way to say “No, I don’t want to continue my subscription.”
And this model can work with your business, too.
Billion-dollar companies have been built on the simple idea of sending a consumable product to customers every month.
And service businesses continue to automatically schedule customers for their weekly, monthly, or quarterly appointments.
Turning your business into a subscription model could very well be the best thing you’ve ever done for your business.
Through tech enablement and digitizing your processes, Add more value to your customers without costing your company!
During a recession, customers become even more price sensitive. Their budgets are shrinking and that makes the cheapest options very attractive.
But very few businesses can afford to run on tight margins. Oftentimes, it just doesn’t make sense to compete on price. And why should you have to give your product or service away at a discount?
Well, you don’t have to…
By simply digitizing your business and adding software to your processes, you can provide a much better service to your customers. Meaning they pay more. Not only can you provide your customers with a better experience or better product, but you can also do so without costing your company.
Here are just a few ways you can provide a premium service for the same price as you’re offering now:
Provide security and peace of mind
It’s no secret that customers are becoming more aware of their privacy. Customers want to make sure their information is safe.
And that doesn’t even include the real financial cost…
For example, if you’re a lawyer or other professional, sending important documents or other sensitive information through email can lead to a data breach that could cost millions of dollars.
Instead, you can use software to set up a system that allows you to share documents and information with customers in a safe manner.
Not only could doing so give your business a step up over the competition, you’ll be giving your customers and yourself ease of mind.
Work collaboratively and in real-time with your customers
B2C and B2B customers expect instant service. And if you don’t provide service in a quick manner, your customers are going to go elsewhere.
With the proper software, you can skip all the meetings and effortlessly collaborate with your customers, providing them with service and information as soon as they need it.
This could be as simple as providing your customers with up-to-date financial information, as in the case with a CPA, or providing instant customer service.
Strengthen relationships
Every successful business owner and salesperson is in the same business: the relationship business.
By building strong relationships with your customers, you can sell more products and services, more often.
You’ll have fewer customer complaints, too!
But keeping in touch with your customers can seem like a full-time job. Who has the time to wade through their black book and send emails, texts, and calls to their customers periodically?
With the right software integrated into your business, you can automatically follow up with customers. For example, a financial advisor could run software that sends text messages and emails to their clients to touch base and let them know how their accounts are doing.
You could set up these automatic contacts and then when customers reply you have the opportunity to offer more services or upsell different products.
Is this right for my business?
You know that you’re going to have to make a change to endure this upcoming recession, but you might be thinking:
“This sounds great, but I don’t think it’s right for my business.”
Many business owners think that their business just isn’t fit for using custom software. In our experience, that just hasn’t been the case.
Sure, we’ve helped software businesses get their ideas from nothing to revenue-generating businesses in a matter of a few short months.
But we’ve also helped local businesses get online so they could sell their product to a wider market – with very little extra work.
You don’t have to invest in some behemoth of a project to get these benefits. You can incorporate tools using low-code or no-code. Or you could make a small investment and make the tools you’re already working with better.
Or you might be thinking:
“My business can’t afford something like this.”
We’ve worked with a lot of different businesses building very different applications and software to make their businesses run smoother and much more lean.
While doing so, we’ve created a huge number of development tools that make our development process much faster – and cheaper – for our clients.
We’ve essentially built lego pieces that can do anything a company needs in 2023. All you need to do is tell us which pieces you like, and we’ll put it together making sure everything meets your business’s needs.
When you’re ready to recession-proof your business – or just take work off your plate and make your day-to-day easier – shoot us a message and let’s talk.
