In part 1, Becoming a Recession Ninja: Getting to Know Your Enemy, I talked about identifying the challenges and opportunities that your business is facing when the economy is in a recession or otherwise facing hard times. In other words, knowing your recession enemies and their vulnerabilities. Part 2, Becoming a Recession Ninja: Developing a Plan of Attack, looked at setting your battle objectives and creating a list of action items that would help you accomplish each objective. Only a few more steps remain to get your home business through hard times and put you on track to becoming a full-fledged Recession Ninja:
- Work through your action items in priority order
- Monitor your progress and adjust accordingly
- Learn from failure and success on the battlefield
- Savor victory
I didn't mention defeat, did I? That's because in order for ninja's to succeed they have to know they will succeed - failure is not an option for a ninja. You can't go out on the battlefield thinking, "What if I don't win?"
Recession Ninjas focus on victory so their enemies will lie slain in defeat!
Once you work your way through the economic recovery process, you should be determined to have a recession proof business in the future. Becoming a full-fledged Recession Ninja through what you learn in the days and weeks ahead can help you accomplish that. In order to do that you'll need to first develop your survival skills by learning all you can about what works and what doesn't work for your specific home business. While the process may seem daunting, you'll be a much better entrepreneur (and ninja) as a result.
Recession Ninjas must focus on survival during battle to succeed once the battle is won!
Achieve Your Objectives to Slay Recession
Now that you have a better picture of the causes that are negatively impacting your business during this period of hard times (your enemies) and you've prioritized your objectives and created a list of action items (battle strategy) to accomplish each objective, it's time to step out on the battlefield, slay recession and get to work on your economic recovery.
Recession Ninjas must be well prepared for battle in order to prevail!
Review your economic priorities and action items.
Are your action items in the order that they can be logically accomplished? For example, if one of your objectives was to adjust your pricing structure, your first action item might be to calculate how much less you need to charge to stimulate demand or how much more you need to charge to improve your profit margin. Or, it might be to poll your existing customers to see if they would be willing to pay more for your services or products and get feedback on how much more that might be. If you're thinking of dropping your rates in order to stimulate demand during hard times, find out if your customers are receptive and if they would be willing to give you additional work or additional orders if you dropped your price.
A Recession Ninja's mindset is "Move here, kick there, strike over there, turn around, kick, strike again!"
Methodically work through your action items for each objective.
It's possible that your action items are the same for more than one objective. It that's the case, you can achieve your objectives in less time. It's like fending off two attackers at once. Recession Ninjas thrive on slaying multiple enemies at once!
Keep track of what you're doing.
Check off or cross out each action accomplished during your economic recovery efforts. By keeping good records at this point, you'll be able to repeat successful actions in later years if the economic health of your business falters again. Keep your battlefield log up to date. For those action items that aren't working, look at how you might adjust them or, at the very least, know which actions to avoid in the future.
That's how Recession Ninjas become wise beyond their years!
Think positive.
Negative thinking will never get you anywhere. Your customers, clients or prospects will detect that you're under a lot of strain when you speak with them. Keep an upbeat attitude, it can go a long way toward being successful during a period of hard times. Keep in mind that your competitors may not be taking the steps you are taking and, as a result, you may have less competition in the days ahead.
The greatest Recession Ninja warriors stand with pride after successful battles!
Reward your accomplishments.
One of the best parts of having a task list and checking off items as they are completed is the self satisfaction of seeing first hand the progress you're making. Once you've completed all the action items for an objective reward yourself in any way that's meaningful for you. As you tackle the next objective, knowing that there's a reward in the future can be big motivator for moving on and getting more action items accomplished.
Savor your battle victories, Recession Ninja, but know the war has not ended and the enemy may return again one day!
Monitor Economic Progress and Make Adjustments
Once each objective is accomplished you'll want to keep track of the results. If your business volume starts to rise, try to determine which of the economic objectives is driving your new success and to what extent. Again, your customers are a good source for this information.
By keeping track of your recovery progress, you'll also be able to see early on if something's not working and you need to go back to the drawing board and adjust one or more of your objectives, or create new economic recovery objectives you may not have considered earlier. Determine if you need additional outside help in order to better find out what's wrong and what you need to do to fix it.
Adjust your battle plan, Recession Ninja and determine if you need reinforcements!
On the next page: Reflecting on Success and Failure and Savoring Victory
