Although there is much talk about this recession ending by year's end, we have to realize that year's end is about nine months from now. Could your business survive another nine months? Too often in times like these businesses make what they think are sacrifices that will help them, but could eventually hurt them. The following are two sacrifices not worth making:
1. Advertising and Marketing.
Now is not the time to cut back on advertising and marketing. As a matter of fact, you may want to ramp it up. Too many companies are cutting back or even doing away with all types of marketing and advertising. What does this mean for you? It means that your competitors who don't market as aggressively as you do will be forgotten when this recession is over. When the recession is over and the public is ready to do some improvements to their homes, they will remember or find you. Take a good look at the type of marketing you are doing and determine what kind of results it is bringing in. Perhaps we shouldn't be doing away with our marketing, but revising our marketing plan. Maybe we need to be more precise and specific about who we target as our audience. Network aggressively, continue to pass out your business cards and promotional items, etc.
2. Reducing Your Pricing Structure.
A lot of us are affected by competitors in our industry who greatly undercut our job proposals. While I've heard this from interior designers as well as other craftspeople, I hear it a lot from my contractor and builder friends. So how could you greatly reduce the price of your services? In most cases, in order to remain in business, it means reducing the quality of materials used or the time used to complete the job (which generally means sacrificing the quality of the work done). It also sets precedent. When things finally do get better, do you want to be known as the company that provides lesser - quality work and materials at a cheap price or a high-quality company with high-quality services provided?
Believe it or not, there are some companies who have remained in business and successful by actually raising their prices. That's not exactly a route I want to take, but it shows that some people are still buying and willing to pay the price for the right product -you just have to find them (through the right marketing).
This post by Israel Retana. Israel is the founder of C.H.I.P.s and 2nd generation craftsman at Retana Cabinet Works , where they've been specializing in custom cabinetry and antique furniture restoration for nearly 30 years. He can be followed on twitter (iretana) or contacted at israel@retanacabinetworks.com
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4 comments:
Great Tips Thanks! @AndreaTannouri the @HolisticMamma
Interesting Blog, we have actually seen an increase in new business from clients who want to market to the trade through our magazine. Additionally we have reacted to the market and have expanded our marketing services for our advertisers to include branding, e marketing help, brochure design, web content and other creative services. We have three new clients now who are using us these services.
Greetings,
I agree - we're opening up new channels of marketing and expanding our existing ones. We've started our blog, we've expanded the footprint of our newsletter, our website is poised for an update, and we've increased our foothold in designer libraries (www.todl.com) and online resources such as www.custommade.com.
I'm not about to undercut my own prices and wake up on the other side of this having to start over in the art world.I will help a customer to adjust a project to meet their budget; but I will not make a piece I made last year for less. It's dispectful to your existing client base and it undermines their confidence in the fact that your pieces will grow in value. In the long run it will hurt you.
Hmmm was already an article about the award? We would ask the link, because I can not find
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