Good Marketing, Good Business

074: When Times Are Tougher In Business

• Shannon Stone • Episode 74

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Business these days is like real-world strength training.

In this podcast I share five steps to ensure you make the most of any economic frustration and hopefully walk out with the upper hand - keep this episode handy for any difficult time in your business journey because these steps are applicable then too.

By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:

  • How important it is to intentionally choose your business / market position
  • The effect the business owner has on their business, team and results
  • How to not suffocate your business by stressing over it any further

Enjoy!

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If you’d like to work together with me as your 1:1 business and marketing consultant, book a call here.

Shannon Stone:

Have you noticed? So much business and marketing content out there is so abstract and airy-fairy, like what they're saying sounds good, but what do you actually need to do? That's where the Good Marketing, good Business podcast comes in. This is where I share practical strategies to help you grow your service-based business. And, in case we haven't met yet, I'm Shannon Stone, award-winning business and marketing consultant, and for the last decade or so, I've been diving in deep with small business owners, helping them to make more sales and get more done in less time, and today's episode is no different. Enjoy. Hey, welcome to the podcast.

Shannon Stone:

Super excited to jump into this episode today and I hope you've had an amazing week, an amazing time. And if you're listening to this live or when it's just gone up, I just cannot believe we are in November. It is crazy. So what we have for us today is when times are tougher in business. So it is 2024, very much the tail end. And recently I put a poll up on LinkedIn to just kind of gauge the room as far as business owners and how they're feeling, and the poll was something along the lines of do you feel like business is harder now or was it harder during the pandemic? And most people said, business is harder right now and you may be feeling that way as well. It kind of feels like it's been a bit of a drag, as far as it's not just a month or a couple of months, possibly not even just like a year of more turbulence, it's just been a real time, maybe since the pandemic, and maybe it feels like things have gotten just incrementally harder the more time that has gone on. So I wanted to share a little bit. Maybe you could take it as a bit of a pep talk or just, I guess, a little bit of support and guidance and just something from an external perspective. Obviously, I'm not in your business, but if this is to help you in any kind of way, that is my goal with this episode today just to share some hopefully something insightful and helpful for when times are tougher in business, no matter how long it's been feeling for you and we all go through this, so just know you are not alone. If that helps you feel any better. Okay, so I've got a couple of things that I'll share with us.

Shannon Stone:

Number one is to acknowledge what is going on. I think that's always really important as the first thing. So as much as I can be like the world's most biggest optimist, we also need to genuinely acknowledge, sometimes, what is actually going on. That might be in your business Definitely we don't want to have rose-colored glasses on. So there's your business, there's your industry, there's the economy at large. There's also the market as well, the people that are wanting to hire you or who could be hiring you.

Shannon Stone:

I think it's really important to acknowledge what is actually going on and to understand things as they are changing. One of the big things that I stay really tapped into as someone who comes from a marketing background, is the market and people that are buying, how they're buying and how their behaviors change over time. Because that is so important, literally now more than ever, we have to be really mindful of those changes and those evolutions that are happening, because if you don't, if you're ignoring it, you're not acknowledging it, your marketing is just not going to stick. So number one is you really have to acknowledge what is going on and just see it for what it is. Don't bring the emotions into it. Just you know, for black and white, if you're looking at data, if you're talking to people like, gauge the room as far as what is happening, and also in this I do also want to share, because I guess this episode in a lens, as a perspective, it's talking about when times are tougher.

Shannon Stone:

Just because times are tougher, I want you to remind yourself and maybe this is the first time you've heard it but there have been a multitude of businesses and great companies that have been born through recession times. So I know we're not the Disneys of the world and the Dropboxes of the world or the MailChimps of the world, or Airbnb or Uber. All of those were birthed during recession times. But that doesn't mean your business can't have incredible success when times are tougher. And it's really amazing actually to note that when times are tougher I know, know for my clients when things don't go perfectly to plan, quite often like more times than not, they are the times when we come up with the best ideas, the best strategies, and it's because things aren't working how we should, how we thought they should, and we come up with even better ideas, greater ideas, greater efficiencies, things that we wouldn't have thought of had we just followed that regular, proven strategy that typically works most of the time. So just because times are tougher or it's feeling a little bit harder, it doesn't mean it's a bad thing.

Shannon Stone:

So I wanted to share that with point number one as much as you acknowledge things and just see it for how it is, don't let it dictate, I guess a negative lens as to where your business could land, because so many amazing things happen when things are tougher. So don't connect tougher with negativity for yourself in your business. That is number one. Number two is and this is probably my favorite point is to pick your position. So if business has been harder for you, there's really three ways that you could go. You could go backwards and you could just succumb to what is happening. And there are actually businesses who will just run at a loss for a couple of years. Intentionally, they plan to do that. So when you're picking your position years, intentionally, they plan to do that. So when you're picking your position, you could plan to just succumb to what is happening. I know a lot of businesses, particularly in the finance space mortgage broking, a lot of things that are dictated by a lot of governing bodies. They're often the ones who will. I don't know if succumb to what's happening is the word, but I guess they've read the room, they're picking their position and they're happy to almost just ride it out as best they can. So you can choose that.

Shannon Stone:

The second way to pick your position is to maintain. So wherever your business is relatively at most of the time I would assume and hope it's in profit it's in a good stance. Maybe that's your position. You want to maintain, just maintain where you're at revenue-wise, profit-wise, just relatively how your business operates. Maybe that is your position. The third position is that you are choosing to grow. So, no matter what is happening in the market, with the industry, with the economy, with everything that is happening, you are still choosing to grow. And why it is my favorite is because the choices are there. You get to decide how do you want to play this. Even if it is tougher, you still have that choice and that opportunity to pick your position. Do you choose to go backwards, do you choose to maintain or do you choose to grow? Do you choose to maintain or do you choose to grow? And I feel like, if we can set that from the get-go, what happens from then outwards is dictated by the position that you choose.

Shannon Stone:

So number two is to pick your position and you might even just say okay, for the next three to six months I'm just choosing to maintain. That is all I have mental and professional capacity for. I'm just going to maintain, and that is something we are more than happy to maintain. That is all I have mental and professional capacity for. I'm just going to maintain, and that is something we are more than happy to do, whereas someone else is. No, we want to grow. That is absolutely what we are doing 100% of the time. So there is no right or wrong answer. The choice is up to you.

Shannon Stone:

Then number three and you know I love a list is to make a plan to match your position. So say, you've chosen to grow. Okay, how are you going to do that? What does that look like? Has the plan you have been working so far been producing results for you? If so, amazing. That's probably a really good plan to continue to do.

Shannon Stone:

If it hasn't been, you need to come up with a plan to match that position. If you want to grow, what does that look like? Or if you choose to maintain, what does that look like? And I love these two step two and three paired together, because it's like, say, you choose to maintain, you don't want to have growth strategies and astronomical strategies, or if it's the other way around. For example, say, you choose to grow your business, that's the position that you choose. However, the plan that you have is to basically maintain where you're at, it's to do what you have been doing, but what we're often seeing at the moment with a lot of businesses is it's actually taking a lot more quantity wise, and more strategic wise. It's taking more of the business to even maintain where they're at. So I guess you need to reflect on both these points and that's why I think they're coupled really beautifully together. So number two was to pick that position, and number three is to make a plan to match your position. Okay, number four and five, let's start to wrap this up.

Shannon Stone:

So number four is, I guess, to really check yourself as the business owner. I really do believe and I feel like it's like now more than ever you might have heard that quote. I know Tony Robbins says it. Probably a lot of people say it that the success of a business is 80% psychology, 20% strategy, and they'll often say, like it's 80% the business owner, 20% everything else. I believe that to be incredibly true. It's like if you see who is leading the charge, who's really driving things or not driving things, that just ripples like dictates across the whole business.

Shannon Stone:

So number four is to check yourself as the business owner and think about how are you showing up? What is it that you believe about your business at this point in time? What are you reinforcing and stating to your team as well? What are you communicating down to them? So much of it, so much of your growth, so much of your position, so much of executing the plan and the strategies that you have in business come down to the business owner, and this is more from, I guess, that psychology point of view. It doesn't mean you have to be executing everything, but if you've made very clear what your position is, you've made very clear what the plan is and you're communicating that to everyone, everyone's on the same page. So check yourself as a business owner. Do all of those things line up, because if they don't, then like everything is to go after you. So let's check you first and then, from then on out, the chances of everything else being stronger and at better play is probably going to be much more greater, going to give you much greater results in your business. So number four is check yourself as the business owner. Okay, and the fifth and final step that I have for us. So, when times are tougher in business, now I've shared a lot of logical, practical type of strategies and steps that you can do.

Shannon Stone:

Number five is extremely different and it is to almost adopt this idea of like just a happy go lucky. Like. I think we can stress so much about business. It is any of the people that I work with. Business is a hundred percent of their life. Most of the time, obviously, they have families and they have things outside of business, but business really is one of their biggest buckets. But I think, as well, as much as we can have the strategies, all the things, our to-do list, the team, whatever it is, your projects, your clients, all the things we have to at some point just like, release the strain a little bit and just almost adopt this idea of like, happy, go lucky. Like. I'm doing the best I possibly can. I've picked my position, I've got my plan in place, I'm communicating this to my team, I'm working my to-do list, I'm doing the actions that I need to do. Like. I'm doing all the things. I'm listening to the podcast to get the ideas and I'm hoping you're executing on them as well. You are doing the best that you can.

Shannon Stone:

So, even as times are tougher, even when times are good as well, I think at some point we have to just almost like, release the strain, release the hold and return to like a happy-go-lucky kind of center point for ourselves. It's like we can't strangle our business with all the angst and what is going on out there. I think that is just going to spill over into all the different strategies and the way that you execute, the way you communicate with people. So, whatever your beautiful, amazing, calm type of grounded energy is in your version, for me it's probably like that happy-go-lucky, like it's just a little bit more positivity going on. We can't always just be looking at what is negative going on and we can't just be chained to our business doing all the do's all of the time, even though we will do it sometimes. We just need to release the strain a little bit, tell ourselves we're doing the best we absolutely can and we'll still get everything done. We'll still stick to the position that we've chosen. We're still going to execute the plan. We're still going to do all the things, but we're going to do it from a place of I'm doing the best I can and that is all we can ask for. So that is what I have for you today Just a little bit of a check-in, a pep talk, a read the room around what is happening with businesses, and I hope you found this useful.

Shannon Stone:

If you did, feel free to reach out anytime, and if we're not connected on LinkedIn, definitely connect over there. It's where I'm spending most of my time these days, aside from the podcast, of course, and what I will do as far as an action step for this episode. There's a couple of episodes that I will select that will tie in really nicely with listening to this one. So I'll make sure I choose those and pop them in the show notes or the description. So definitely check it out, and that's what I have for you today.

Shannon Stone:

I hope you have an amazing week and I'll talk to you soon. Hey, thanks for listening. If you found this episode useful, I'd love for you to send it to a friend. The best podcasts I have found have all been recommended to me. If you can spread the word by sharing this episode, I can spend more time helping you by creating episodes just like this one. Send it, text it, tell somebody about it. Whatever you need to do, the more you spread the word, the more I can focus on creating needle-moving episodes to help you and your friends.

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