In business, months come different. Some months you will manage every single bill and have a little left over and some months you will barely make the rent bill.
Some tips to help you in a crisis and to keep your business afloat are
Be Selective
Choose where your time and attention will go. If you check your list of customers you will easily identify who your most profitable customers are. And also they will show you who the least profitable are and the ones that you should just ditch (as they take forever to pay you).
By checking your numbers you will to identify which of these groups of customers deserve your time, energy and resources. The numbers will or should tell you that 80% of the money you make comes from 20% of your customers. Which means that 80% of your customers will only contribute to 20% of your revenue.
So be selective in your business and spend your time and energy where it will get you the most revenue.
Cull Your Stock
Apart from not wanting to lose your stock to theft you should not want your stock to eat up space and resources. Check the stock and use the same rule as the customers (that is if 20% of the stock you are selling is contributing 80% of the revenue). If a maximum of the revenue also comes from 20% of the stock pile then start to get rid of the slow sellers.
Offer at a discounted rate to your star customers and keep your most profitable stock. This way you can focus more on stock that makes you money. And you can dedicate more resources to these (e.g. on advertising).
Take Advantage of Free Ad Spaces
Your money is tight and your income is low. So take advantage of free ad spaces. Choose the space that will allow you to show case your business as widely as possible and to the right people.
There is no point in advertising to people who are far away from your location and you have no means to send the good and receive the money.
Cleanse your business of whatever doesn’t work; focus on the ad space or platform that will expose you to the right audience.
If you have to pay for ad space seek for value.
