Are You a Business Pilgrim?

Increasing Business: In site of it all…

This is the time to act, the time to be productive, the time to move ahead in the world, when it appears that everything is contracting, it is in fact time to expand!

 The first question you might ask is how do we expand if nobody is buying, and of course that does make it more difficult.  Let’s imagine a couple of things that can help us have hope for the current future and the business climate we are in. 

 First, imagine that it is the early years in America and you are a Pilgrim.  You are newly arrived to this continent and you must survive.  The Indians have been helping you with corn and fish but now you need other things, like firewood, salted meats and supplies for the coming winter.  Because you are not producing anything of much value and the natives and your neighbors are not trading as much, things look bleak as you begin to realize you could starve!  What are your options?  You need to quickly come up with more and better goods to trade or you need to expand the number of customers for what little you have to offer.  If you have money you can buy goods, if you are healthy you can manufacture something (horse shoes…).  The hard part would be expanding your client base since everyone walks or canoes, and since they like to live a little too far between villages.  So you better get to working hard or you will starve. 

 Since it isn’t the days of the pilgrims and since we do have more options today, we should take full advantage of them as quickly as possible.  What better options do we have?  Internet, phones, cars, planes, trucks, trains,, radio, television, and more, and we even have multiple options for those items.  Unlike the pilgrims you have multiple ways to communicate, transport, deliver, service and represent your business to many people very quickly.  The trick is to take advantage of all the free ones plus spend a little on the paid services to be sure you hit the best possible cross-section of potential customers or clients.

 I was about to write a description of the steps you need to take to expand your business in this environment but why tell you the same old story again?  You already know what to do and you just need to make sure you have the attitude that this is an opportunity to expand rather than an opportunity to hope to make it through the winter.  So take advantage of all the technology you can since the larger companies are definitely doing so and you don’t want to be left behind.