Small business resources: help for tough times

Our dinner conversation was going just fine until a friend and business owner and I heated up the conversation about small business resources and the current economic crisis. As a result, I spent the morning wondering which small business resources are available to help businesses prosper when times are tough.

I ran across an article, 10 ways to thrive in hard times which notes, "In recessionary thinking, the impulse is to cut to bare bones, but when the economy inevitably swings back, if you've pruned the bush too far, you have nothing to grow." As a sustainability consultant, this mirrored my comments exactly. Small businesses today can be reactive to conditions. As a professional consultant, I suggest the key to weathering the storm is to incorporate a sustainable businesses mindset: think long term. Have a plan.

Working with small businesses, I am interacting daily with business owners and realizing firsthand the worries and concerns they are facing. Business sustainability, often interpreted as an environmental practice, is so much more. It's an interconnection of cultural, social, economic and environmental practices. Business owners that are less reactive to current conditions and focused on long term planning are experiencing less anxiety and more confidence due to having a plan, executing on that plan, and making adjustments as needed.

To make it through tough times, there is a number of existing - no cost -small business resources available to you:

Develop and strengthen relationships with your clients, stakeholders, community. Deepen business loyalties, look for ways to work together. Remember we are all in the same boat, so why not use it as a means to connect? New allegiances may be formed, explore new relationships with vendors, be open to finding ways that help your business as well as other businesses. Is there a way for like businesses in your industry to collectively work together?

Invest in you’re the care of your customers. Excellent, attentive, and responsive customer service is invaluable. Your customer service has the opportunity to complete each transaction having the customer leave feeling better than they did prior to your company engagement.

Strengthen your business reputation: the actions you take today leave a mark on your employees, clients, and vendors. How well you manage through the crisis communicates an impression of you as a business owner and that of your company.

At Taiga Company, we work with our clients to build long term planning as a bridge to the current economic conditions as well as build business sustainability.