7 Survival, Escape and Evation Strategies for Small Business Owners in the Third World Economic Recession

Wikipedia defines recession as a business cycle contraction, a general slowdown in economic activity. 

As a result, household income and business profits fall, while bankruptcies and the unemployment rate rise.Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending.

Given this backdrop, small business owners though greatly affected can still manage to have their business afloat if they just know how to improvise and adapt to the situation.

Here are some ways on how to combat the current economic crisis affecting your small business on a tight budget:

01 Switch to Daily Survival Mode

Analyze your daily expenditures in order to operate your business. 

This may include but are not limited to rent of space, staff salary , electric bill , gas, consumables and any other related expense . 

Most of these items are billed monthly but it's important for you to break it down in terms of  expense per day.

For example, electric bill: if you have Php 3000 monthly bill, then your daily expense for a day is 100.Sum up all your daily expense so you will have an overview of the real money spent in order for you to operate for one day.

Knowing this figure, you can assess your performance daily from your sales minus your expense if you really are profitable on that day or behind the expense you incur.

Keeping tabs on your daily status, you can instantly adjust where to modify operations in order to balance your records so you can be sure to be profitable always, daily.

All you need is just a simple listing of your daily in and out of cash.

02 Escape from Negative Business Habits

Negative business habits are activities you already are doing but are not aware that has negative impact on your business which ranges from vices to  unbecoming personal handling of transactions.

What are examples 

of negative business habits ?

a. Not recording your daily sales and expenditures since you are just family run business

b. Not separating business money from personal money

c. Not regularly checking stocks conditions and movement 

d. Trusting too much on relatives or employees in handling your business . 
Regular owner counterchecking of transaction is a must.

e. Non improving on service, store appearance, and not inroducing of new items for customer appeal.

All these negative business habits should be changed in order to escape absolute business downfall sooner than expected.

03 Evade all Business Threats

What factors dims the chance of your business to thrive? 

Be it an unruly customer , a relative perpetually asking freebies ,  a dishonest employee , a supplier who can't keep its word  , or even your negative business habits - all these are threats to your business.

Keep away from it. Devise ways on how not to deal or transact with these factors.

In essence, professionalize your business by having a standard operating procedure on running your transactions even how small you think your enterprise maybe.

04 Be Flexible

Since spending is down, it's time for you to reconsider business .This may include price slash for slow moving items,  more friendly service to customers , or special discounts for bulk purchase and orders .
Your goal is to keep business steady even on low profit margin just to keep your customers  and survive the business slowdown .
Being flexible also applies to recalculating orders so as not to over stock and not let your capital sleep on dormant merchandise.

05 Maximize Resources

Everything that has value must contribute to the advancement of your operations. Even that old but functional PC or printer you ditched in your stockroom to give way to the top of the line model that you purchased can have profitable use. Look for ways to monetize all your assets so as to augment your expenses.
Even on manpower and operations, assess activities that can be merged into one sweeping move. Look for opportunities to have new and related business using your old resources .
These things, you can't see when your business is booming but during economic crunch, you must open your mind to any possible extra income that you can do while not actually adding budget.

06 Make Use of the Time While Waiting

Since at this period, business is slow, there will be moments of unproductive waiting, for you and for your employees.
Look for special activities they will be busy of while waiting for business. It's either improving the appearance of your office, store , or any special activity beneficial to your whole operation.
It can also be a short training or upgrade on their knowledge on running your business.
The web is a wonderful resource for them to kill time.
As for you as the owner, spend this time on research and development, travel or anything that could enrich your knowledge on your field of business.

Remember, time wasted is time lost, and it is gold.

07 Be not Afraid

Business is a cycle.
Sometimes down yet most of the time up. You should keep it that way.
That's real business - ups will be more than downs or else you will be out of busines soon. 

The key always is close monitoring so you can modify things as the need arise .
Also bear in mind that all business has maturity period as most ventures now is becoming fad business especiallly small ones. 

Be not afraid if this period will come to entrepreneurs like you.
Given your ability to adapt and locate new opportunity, business characteristics can always be predicted . Being an entrepreneur is a self sustaining culture.
Anywhere you maybe, be it boom days or critical economic phases,business will prevail even in just a small scale level just like big corporations.