4 Strategies to Turn Around a Struggling Business

You love what you do. You love being your own boss and having full control of your day to day and your future. As a business owner you also understand that business can go up and down. So, what can you do when business is down and you find yourself with little or no prospects in your pipeline?  Here are 4 strategies for struggling businesses that you can do right now to attract more clients and increase your sales.

1)    Define your VALUE – Differentiate your product or service from the competition. Customers purchase products or services to obtain more value than they currently have. Clearly communicate what the specific, positive impact to them will be when they hire you or purchase your products. What is it they are really buying to help them get what they are missing right now?   If your service saves them time, the customer is really buying more time. You can then define the value to that customer as the measurable results they can achieve with the extra time they bought. Other values include saving money or leveraging your knowledge to gain speed to market. Gaining greater status is also another common value.

  2)    Troubleshoot the ISSUE – Identify where the gap is in your business. There could be a multitude of reasons for your low profit levels. The following are some key questions that should be defined in your business plan. Creating or updating your business plan is an excellent way to help you gain clarity for troubleshooting the issue. You want to answer questions like:

• Is your product or service in low demand?
• Are there advancements in technology overshadowing your product?
• Is there high competition?
• Is your target market poorly defined?
• Do you have the right talent on your team?
• Are you profit margins enough to sustain your business?
• Are you employing the right marketing strategy that yields high sales conversion?

Updating your business plan answering these types of questions will help you reach the core of what is truly causing your company’s shortfalls and low profits.

  3)    Understand and define your TARGET MARKET – When I coach entrepreneurs with struggling businesses too often their target market is just not specific enough. Many businesses may have several different types of target market. But, for the purposes of marketing your business for turn around you want to start with a laser focus on buyers of your highest profit margin services or products. Your target market profile should be specific enough to answer basic questions like:

• Where can you find large numbers of them in groups?
• What magazines and newspapers do they read?
• What blog sites, websites, forums do you frequent?
• How engaged are they on social media and which platform?
• What associations do they belong to?  … and more.

4)    Put up the “bat signal” for HELP – If your business is struggling as the business owner it can be tough to see the forest between the trees. You’re probably in overdrive putting in more hours working in the business with little or no time left to work on the business. This is where it would be wise to seek expert help.  An experienced business coach can serve as your guide and mentor to accelerate turning your business around. When Presidents of hugely successful companies are interviewed to share their success tips, one of the most common advice given is:     “Prioritize investing in your people.” If your business is struggling, than YOU are the first person you should invest in. You can start by simply investing some time working “on your business.” If you’re ready to start working on strategy #1 I have a free resource to help you effectively define your value. A key element in defining your value is what I call finding your wow factor. Grab your free 4-part video training on How to Find Your WOW Factor at     https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com