How to grow a business during the economic crisis? Entrepreneur's guide of business development activities to focus on when the recession comes.

1. 7 G R O W T H E X E R C I S E S F O R T E C H - D R I V E N
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2. The future has come crashing down unexpectedly in 2020. It feels like
just a preview of what could happen to the world in the decades to
come.
Rolling out at a rapid pace, the pandemic has launched a kind of
unscheduled, global heavy stress-test for all economies, industries, and
strategies simultaneously.
And most organizations, as well as individuals, seem unprepared for
such a future.

3. When a downturn occurs approximately every 10 or 12 years, it’s typical
for most managers to stop, postpone, shrink, cut, and just try to survive.
In reality, this is a perfect time to adapt your business and navigate
confidently both through tough times and the opportunities that follow.

4. So what are some smart adaptations to make to avoid decline during
this massive quarantine and severe economic crisis?
If you’re ready to tackle the challenges and take advantage of the newly
emerging reality, here are some useful exercises worth trying to prosper
in the new normal.

5. 1 . A DJ U ST YO U R P R O D U C T P O RT F O L I O Q U I C K LY
Consumer behavior changes with lightning speed, and so should your
product offering do. Mass consumer groups become more price-
sensitive, and some low-cost products become more welcome.
Depending on your industry, it may be something as simple as changing
pricing plans or using smaller packages to fit within shrinking budgets.

6. Also, some product niches are experiencing a higher demand now. If you’re lucky
enough to have an increase in sales for some of your products, you should further
explore that opportunity.
Find out who is buying and their incentive to do so, and consider adding more options
or rolling out a wider variety for these well-demanded items. You should also be sure to
support the new offering by refocusing your promo campaigns accordingly.
Talk to your customers, discover the trends, experiment on the go.

7. 2 . R E TA R G E T O N I N D U ST R I E S T H AT S H O W S I G N I F I CA N T G R O W T H
There are plenty of sectors that have improved, or at least seem to be
recession-neutral. If you have B2B customers, identify your capabilities
that can satisfy the demands of those in telemedicine, online education,
delivery services, pharmacy and healthcare, eCommerce, on-demand
leisure, gaming, consulting, investment, recession-friendly startups, or
any other online services.
If you can quickly come up with some new well-targeted products or add
new relevant features to your existing ones, results may be worthwhile.

8. Although don’t give up completely on agonizing industries.
There are probably two types of travel-related businesses or restaurant chains now:
ones that get creative to survive and use this pause to digitize or accelerate their
operations, and ones that will not open again.
Judge the panic level accordingly and choose the appropriate next special offer.

9. 3 . T H I N K O F A D D I N G O F F S H O R E T E A M M E M B E R S TO G E T M O R E F O R L E S S
If you continue to work on your products intensively, there are some
options to increase the pace cost-effectively. Try growing your team by
adding fully remote employees from other countries, where wages are
significantly less.
Doing this individually in an unknown destination may not be the best
idea. However, going through a capable service provider may turn what
seems like complexities into a very streamlined process.

10. It is usually referred to as staff augmentation, personnel leasing, or outstaffing. You
simply widen your existing team with dedicated professionals working from a more
cost-effective location.
They work full-time on your project, and you manage them directly, while your service
provider supports you with all kinds of administrative issues. Recruiting, legal, payroll,
training, infrastructure, none of these will be a headache for you anymore.
You can quickly gather even whole product teams of highly-qualified engineers now.
Some industry giants are putting their projects on hold, and thousands of great talents
are becoming temporarily available. This gives you the chance to assemble an
excellent dedicated team to work on your product.

11. All that is happening these days will train us to be more efficient in a fully remote
collaboration environment. Some of these outsourcing geeks may eventually become
your magic wand for years ahead.
Everything is remote now anyway, so it doesn’t matter where your employees actually
are.
It is a valuable benefit of the new digital economy — you don’t have to inflate your office
space, staff size, or increase the CapEx to get things done. Just like with equipment
leasing or car-sharing, there is no need to own everything anymore. Let someone else
care about all that administrative headache; you have the opportunity to focus on your
core business entirely.

12. 4 . C R E AT E YO U R H O R I ZO N TA L E S CA L ATO R F O R G R O W T H
Remember those moving walkways in the airports? When you get on
them, you pick up speed, and everyone else walking normally, quickly
lags behind.
It is quite difficult to outperform the competition when everything is
blooming. And when the recession comes, it takes a lot of braveness to
invest in growth.
Most companies make cuts, layoffs, and try to get their bloated systems
back into a viable condition. So it is your golden time to invest in long-
term things. Strategic marketing efforts done now may bring you steady
results in the future.

13. Some new products are easier to launch, and the R&D costs less — many contractors are
now more willing to accommodate your pay rates.
HR and talent acquisition can benefit from an impressive number of skilled employees
that you weren’t able to hire before. Suddenly many of them become available and are
now also more grounded.
Other strategic moves may include an upgrade to financial or operational systems and
processes, as well as being more proactive with new partner alliances (yes, now is a
good time to help each other).

14. Consider also taking some M&A investment steps. Plenty of young but promising
startups will probably settle for a much lower check for their survival in the summer of
2020 than they would have just six months ago. So if you have an investment capability
now, use it in full.
The best ROI starts when everyone is right at the bottom, and here you are with your
cash.
Focus on long-term instruments for growth, shying away in confusion can quickly burn
your money during tough times.

15. 5 . G A I N LO N G -T E R M LOYA LTY T H R O U G H S U P E R I O R C U STO M E R S E RV I C E
What is the key to loyalty and being recommended? Number one is to
exceed overall expectations and make every point of the customer
journey pleasurable.
Right now is an excellent time to rethink your customer service and
reflect with your team about customer feedback and areas to improve.
Teach your support team to help the customer as if it is their best friend
messaging or calling. Be personalized, be open, be creative.
It’s all simple — just try to imagine how you would like to be treated and
put yourself into the customer’s shoes.

16. People lack empathy and kindness now, so give them hope for a better future by
showing them the best version of you, a helping hand, addressing all their issues. Feel
their pains and concerns, then act accordingly.
Add a few months of your subscription service for free, suggest a bonus upgrade, issue
a valuable certificate, offer an additional warranty, send them a free sample or a small
present. Do something nice they don’t expect.
If you are a C-level executive, spend some time talking to your customers and ask your
best people to do the same. Try to solve clients’ requests in a way that inspires them to
love your company and come back to you again.

17. 6 . G E T S O M E E X T E R N A L A DV I C E
Regardless of how good you are, experienced consultants can bring
some valuable pieces that your puzzle lacks. If you want to protect your
business for the next few years of growth after the recession, attract some
outside professionals.
Ask for their outside perspective; let them highlight every bottleneck of
your processes. Maybe there’s something that you just didn’t notice in
your tunnel vision. Find what you were missing and see what can be done
this year to outperform your competitors in the future.

18. Strong managers intentionally challenge themselves from time to time with the best
experts available. It helps to stay objective, bring fresh ideas from other industries, and
innovate more.
Remember that quite often, a local seasoned entrepreneur doing boutique business
consulting may bring significant value with insights, so it is not always about paying for
those bespoke suits of the big-4 league stars.

19. 7 . F I N A L LY, D O YO U R M A R K E T I N G H O M E WO R K
This period of decreased activity can be used to catch up on those long-
delayed tasks. Some of you now finally have the time to put together all
those ideas to revamp your outdated website. Or maybe create a useful
mobile app that you’ve been thinking about for over a year (everyone has
them now, right?)

20. Check the marketing or operations backlogs. I’m sure there is something that you
haven’t gotten your hands on for a while. Think of new features for your core product,
at last. Implement those that your nimble competitors have already launched.
Discuss ideas with your staff to keep them motivated, engaged, and on-board. Most
likely, some new brilliant ideas will follow.

21. There are several more exercises that successful entrepreneurs and
CEOs do when everybody else stagnates. However, let’s wrap up at this
point and keep enough energy for actions.
Unleash your entrepreneurial energy, passion, and creativity to make
some smart moves that look like incredibly successful decisions when
the world gets back to normal.

22. This is a unique chance for confident and rationally ambitious managers
to show their mastery and go full throttle contrary to collective panic.
Cheer up, and may good luck be with you during stormy global
weather.
Remember, the sun always comes out and shines again at some point; it
is just a natural state of things.

23. COV E R P H OTO B Y J E S H O O T S . C O M O N U N S P L A S H
T H A N K YO U F O R R E A D I N G !
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