Foreseeing trends and acting on them before everyone else does gives you two distinct advantages: You can act on opportunities before anyone else does and you can mitigate challenges before they actually happen. Imagine how different your business could have been if you knew the 2008/2009 recession was going to happen BEFORE it actually happened. There were plenty of people who accurately predicted it and acted accordingly.

Or, imagine how different your investment portfolio might be if you knew that Home Depot was going to be as big as it has become. If you foresaw the rise in do-it-yourself home renovations, you could have bought the stock really cheap a few years ago and seen your portfolio grow. (Obviously I’m not here to give investment advice but I’m just using it as an example to show you the impact of seeing and acting on trends).

About your trendwatching: How to schedule it and what to know
Trendwatching for your business can be done in three different steps. The first step, which I will show you in this issue, will take more than ten minutes. But once you’ve done this step, the second step (discussed in the next issue) won’t take any extra time throughout your week (it is included in the things you already do) and the third step might only take ten minutes every week or two. So once you have done the first step, it is only the third step that needs to be scheduled for a ten minute effort every couple of weeks to keep your finger on the pulse of trends in the economy and in business. That’s it!

I recommend that you schedule ten minutes every one to two weeks to do this. The reason is: if you schedule it less frequently than that, you won’t be able to see as many trends and you won’t be able to act on them as quickly. The ability to detect trends is a combination of seeing all of the clues and also seeing them evolve over time. But if you schedule it more frequently than that (like daily, for example), the trends won’t move enough from one day to the next and it won’t be a good use of your time.

Also I should point out that in a ten minute trendwatching period, you’ll only be able to trend-watch a few different trends. What I’m about to show you is going to help you zoom in on just a few things that can really help you. So don’t think that you’re going to stare into a crystal ball and immediately be able to see every possible trend that could impact your life, business, investment portfolio, personal health, the environment, the economy, etc.

And lastly, before we get into the actual how-to, you need to remember that trends are generalizations and trendwatching is an art, not a science and there are a lot of factors that can reverse a trend in a flash. Two examples of dramatic trend-reversals in the last decade were the tragic 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and, more recently, the quick intervention by world governments to prop up the failing global economy. Both of these extremely dramatic examples show that trends in particular directions can be reversed by external forces. They are difficult to foresee and they don’t happen often.

Now I’ll show you the preparation step to make your trendwatching really useful to you. If you don’t get it done now, do it as homework because you’ll want it done for next week’s issue.

Trendwatching Step 1: Preparation

Start a trends file: Your trendwatching will be more effective if you pull together all of your trend information into one place. I like using a mindmap (like MindMeister) or GoogleDocs but you might prefer some other format (like a spreadsheet or Evernote or even a piece of paper). You just want a place where you can jot notes and collect links or news items. It needs to be useful and you’ll end up adding lots of information to it.

Identify your areas of focus: Since you can’t possibly see all trends ahead of time, you need to identify a few potential areas where you want to focus in on to see trends. Usually this will be your industry or business model or customer needs or the marketing methods you use. Those four elements are good places to start. List a few of those and write down what the current situation is.

For example, a social media coach might list the following elements that they want to watch trends on, plus the current situation for each element:

• Top social media: Blogs, Facebook, Twitter
• Things my clients want to know: How to do it to grow my business
• Ways I market my business: Social media, AdWords, word of mouth

(Of course there are other things that could be relevant but I’ll use these as examples).

Trends tend to move in similar waves to business lifecycles and the economy: A trend will have a period of growth, a peak, a period of decline, and a valley. So as you watch the trends, you’ll want to track where each of these trends are along that wave. Are they growing? Have they peaked? Are they declining? I’ll show you how to do that in steps 2 and 3. Be aware that this will tend to trend in one particular direction (growth to peak to decline to valley) but new innovations, new consumer adoption, and dramatic events can extend a particular stage of a trend or accelerate a trend through the stages. Blogs, for example, might be in an extended decline, Facebook might be in a peak but could quickly decline if something better came along (which may have been the case for Myspace when it was “replaced” by Facebook).

Determine the causes: Trends don’t just happen. The trends you are focusing on developed because of a number of influences coming together at the same time. Brainstorm what these factors might be and add them to your trendwatching document. It’s okay if you don’t get a comprehensive list and it’s okay if you’re not 100% accurate. Over time, you might think of additional factors that influence your areas of focus and you’ll want to add these, too, and you are free to make refinements as you go.

To briefly draw from our example, you might write:

• Facebook. Influencing factors: A desire to be more connected with others; technology that allows for sharing; word of mouth to invite others on (“the more the merrier”); a consolidation of platforms (for games, video, blogging, chatting, pictures, etc.).

• Twitter. Influencing factors: A desire to be more connected with others; a combination of desktop-based and mobile technology; a desire for real-time information.

• How to use social media to grow business. Influencing factors: Businesses see other businesses succeeding and want the same thing; businesses recognize that more and more people are joining social media; businesses are always looking for new marketing opportunities.

These are just some quick ideas to illustrate what kind of influencing factors would contribute to the trend you are focusing on.

Identify the key influencers: Every trend has key influencers who become the big name in that trend. Sometimes they are early adopters and other times they are just well-known people who have jumped on board. Twitter, for example, has some key influencers like Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Brogan, Mari Smith, Justin Bieber, and Ashton Kutcher. Although they might each talk to different groups of people, they wield a fair amount of influence over their particular group.

That’s all you need to do right now. In the next issue of Tips In Ten I’ll show you how to take the information you’ve done here (or you’re about to do for homework) and use it to discover trends to help your business.

Trendwatching is fun, it’s really easy to do, and it can make a dramatic difference on your business by allowing you to act faster than your competition on opportunities and carefully prepare for challenges before others know those challenges are there!

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Fair enough. Almost all of us had those calls from clients. Well, guess what. The economy has pretty much sorted itself out. It’s not perfect. It’s not completely healed. It will still ache when it rains. But it’s getting better. Economists tell us that we may still see a blip or two on our radar but we can see some hope in the near distance, too.

So… what now? If you survived, congratulations. There’s an adage about recessions that I really like. It’s a little harsh but it’s true: Recessions are a way of cleaning out weak businesses to make strong businesses stronger. It’s a survival of the fittest situation on a corporate level.

If you’re still in business, that’s great!
Your business may feel like it’s reeling from the staggering blow of a boxer with a mean right hook… but it’s still standing. You’re still in control. Go out there and win more business. Fight back by making more calls, connecting with more clients through social media engagement, revisiting your business’ strategy and deliverables. In a sort of “Fight Club” of economics, the recession has stripped away everything else, leaving your pure business. If you’re still standing, you’ve got some opportunities to start taking advantage of this right away.

To put a positive spin on the situation, your business might have been beaten up but it also worked over your competitors and sent not a few of them to the economic morgue. Even though customers might still be shy about spending, there are more of them out there who were once served by your competitors. If you win them now and serve what little buying needs they have, when the economy turns around and booms again (and it will!) you’ll have a bigger customer base to succeed with.

So, what does that mean for you right now? Shore up your processes. Make sure your customer service is focused and systematic. Perfect your deliverables and create new ones to serve the needs of the new customers you’ll be getting. Revisit which of your competitors bit the dust and make sure that you have the offerings that serve all of their customers.

And, If you’re no longer in business, that’s not so bad (believe it or not).
Okay, so I don’t want to get so congratulatory to the businesses who are still standing and leave some of my no-longer-in-business readers in the dust. If your business didn’t make it through the recession, I have two things to say: First, I’m sorry. I understand the challenge and heartache that you’re facing now. Second, it may not feel like it right now, but you have a unique opportunity to start over. Yes, start over with a new business. Don’t think of it as an uphill battle but as an opportunity to start doing things at the very beginning of your new business that you wished you had done at the beginning of your last business!

Good luck!

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2. 5 Things You Need to Do In Your Small Business Right Now

While there is still a lot of effort to be put into climbing out of this hole, we are hopeful that economists are correct in their prediction of a current economic recovery. While I am not an economist, I am an avid reader and I watch the trends and signs closely and everything does indeed seem to be pointing in the right direction.

So, if that’s the case, are you in recovery mode?

Here’s what I’m talking about: During the darkest depths of the recession, many businesses stopped spending to save on expenses. They redoubled their efforts to drive income (although the wise person will note that if everyone is watching their spending, they’re not buying, so increased sales effort doesn’t always work because it’s a vicious cycle).

And things are turning around and will boom again within the next couple of years. Unfortunately, many small businesses will wait until things are booming again before they finally unlock their wallets to begin buying. That’s a bad strategy. If they do that, they miss out on the highly lucrative growth period between the depths of the down market and the heights of the up market.

So, how can you take advantage of this growth period?

1. Start by investing in your business. Customers are starting to buy again and your business needs to be fresh and ready to serve them. Is your website up to date?
2. Slowly increase your inventory. You don’t have to create a huge backlog, but orders will start coming in and you’ll want to have some inventory to sell. (Colleagues of mine who are service providers are booking up weeks and even months in advance now).
3. Prepare for increased capacity, perhaps by hiring and training additional staff or developing systems and processes that will increase efficiency. It’s best to do this now while you are still a little slow and only just starting to pick up rather than waiting to be bombarded with orders before you do something about it.
4. If you have a good system of upsells, cross-sells, or incremental sales, then lower your prices to generate more marketshare right now. If you don’t have a good system of upsells, cross-sells, or incremental sales, then put one in place first.
5. Consider raising your prices. Don’t make too big of a leap but bump them up slightly in the next six months because, if the market blossoms in the next couple of years then your prices will already be where they need to be.

Now is a good time to start spending because you’re probably beginning to get some more income coming in but many prices are still low because there are lots of businesses still in “recession reaction mode” with extremely low prices to stay afloat.

Lastly, this is the perfect time to stop and look back over the recessionary period and think about what you learned. Are there things you’d do differently in the future? It could be as simple as melting down emotionally at the beginning because you thought that the world was about to end but realizing one year later that business marches on and you’ll be okay. Or, it could be slightly advanced, like the top ten things that you need to do if a recession were to strike in order to stay profitable. Once you’ve figured out what that “if it happened again” list is, write it down, put it in an envelope, and on the envelope write something like: “In Case of Emergency, Open Envelope”. This is your recession survival guide and it will help you to keep a clear head if and when the economy flushes down the drain again.

Good luck!

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It also means something else: It means NOW is the time to start building your business.

Why now to build your business?
Lots of entrepreneurs (especially ones who are moonlighting) wait until the economy is good before they take the risk and market their business. They want to see some immediate return on their investment and that’s more likely to happen when money is flowing. But smart entrepreneurs will start ramping up their business right now, while we haven’t yet recovered, so that they’ll be positioned in a much better way once recovery does occur.

Don’t wait until you’re in the busy midst of a strong economy to make changes to your business. Here are 5 things you need to do in your small business right now to put yourself on the right footing.

1. Increase your marketing. Seriously think about doubling it if you can. Or, if that takes too much time and money, try to bump it up by at least a third. The investment you make now in your marketing will come back to you with a much higher return once the economy is better (in the same way that you might buy a house at a low price in a bad economy and sell it at a higher price in a better economy).
2. Develop systems and best practices to automate your workload. It’s hard to create systems and best practices when you’re in a tornado of selling and customer fulfillment. But when things are quiet, this is the best time to develop and refine those processes. Then, when things pick up, you have everything in place already. It’s much easier to make small tweaks to existing processes when you’re busy than it is to try to create those processes from scratch.
3. Improve your follow-up systems. New customers are great. Existing customers who come back and buy from you again are even better. They are more profitable for you. So you need to develop special programs and marketing efforts to reach out to those customers. Again, now is the time to do it when things are slow. You’ll be able to experiment with what works and what doesn’t. When things pick up, you’ll have a strong system of successful follow-up to generate more existing customer revenue.
4. Clean up your files. When things get busy, piles start to form around the office: There’s a pile of bills to be paid. There’s a pile of receipts. There’s a pile of scrap papers full of ideas. There’s a pile of unsorted papers (which will go into other piles, won’t they?). Now is the time to get those in order. Redevelop your filing system so it’s usable for you. (Hint: if you have stuff in piles, your filing system is not usable). This is also a good time to think about doing the same for your bookkeeping.
5. This is also a good time to do some product development. When things are busy, you don’t have a lot of time to put into new product development or into refining existing products. You’re too busy filling orders. So when things are slower, it’s time to increase the value of your existing products and it’s time to create new revenue generators.

If what the economists are saying is true, this is the calm before the storm. We might see a few more quiet months and then we should see some serious recovery. Take the time now to ramp up your business so that you’re ready to go when more people are buying.

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1. When things are going really well
2. The 7 Things Coaches MUST Do In Their Business Today
3. The Three Stages of Small Business

What now? She and her husband had talked about the possibility of a lay-off when the economy first slumped, and Mary had said at the time that she had dreamed of owning her own business. In her spare time she painted watercolor and friends and family had encouraged her to pursue it as a career but she had never had the nerve or opportunity. Until now.

She spent the weekend enjoying time with her family and talking about the future. That Monday, she officially went into business for herself… although what it meant was still a puzzle. She wasn’t great at sales. She couldn’t design a website to save her life. Bookkeeping wasn’t a strong suit. But she could paint!

Many business owners find themselves in this situation and desire to break through but cannot. They know that a variety of skills are required to run a business (marketing, sales, administrative, etc.) but no one is equipped with all of those skills. Should they partner with someone? Should they just push through and hope for the best? Should they ignore their entrepreneurial dreams and pursue the 9-5 job?

Mary didn’t. She painted because that’s what she was good at. She also called an outsourcing firm.

An outsourcing firm is one that provides a number of services necessary to run a business but are often not core to the business. In Mary’s case, she hired an outsourcing firm that could create and maintain her website and blog, answer a telephone around the clock when orders came in, handle her finances, and even track down corporate leads and make sales.

Outsource firms make business possible. They allow business owners to focus on the core of the business – the thing that they entered business to do – by doing for the business owner all the other things that need to happen for the business to run: administration, marketing, sales, finance, you name it.

Outsource firms make business possible in another way. Aside from helping the business owner focus on the core of their business, outsourcing also makes sure that the phone can be answered 24/7, or that there is always someone available to answer questions asked through IM or chat on the website.

And, outsource firms make business profitable. One of the challenges of businesses (especially those operating in today’s economy) is the problem of staff. Hiring staff can be costly. And what if sales decline? There is overhead to consider, too. But outsource staff can scale with the business, increasing as the need demands and decreasing if necessary. This keeps costs down (and more closely tied to sales than a salaried employee would). And yet another profitability factor – time spent on the right things. Business owners should be focused on their area of expertise and, if possible, on sales and marketing. Everything else takes away their attention from those more important tasks.

On her own, Mary’s painting would have remained a dream and she would be out with her resume looking for another job in a very difficult hiring climate. But with outsourcing to help her, Mary’s business prospects look bright.

To be successful in today’s highly competitive global market, businesses need to find creative solutions to their business needs. If you are starting a business, or are running a business right now, there’s a good chance that it will be a stronger business when you put more of your focus on the core and push the non-core activities to an outsource firm.

About the author: Heather Villa, MBA CMA MSM, is a Business Coach and Entrepreneur. She helps business owners achieve success in operations, productivity, project management, and social media. Read her other articles at http://hireheathervilla.com/resources/articles/ and visit http://heathervilla.com for more information.

Disclaimer: © 2009 Heather Villa. Permission is granted to repost this article. Article must be published in its entirety, including author bio, and all links must remain intact.

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Everything you enjoy about business lunches is now available on Twitter with Business Lunch Club. If you find yourself unable to have a real business lunch, simply tweet while you eat and add the hashtags #businesslunchclub, #bizlunchclub, or #blc.

Here are some ideas to get the benefits of a business lunch from Business Lunch Club.

1. Find others who are stuck at their desks over lunch. You’ll make your at-your-desk time far more productive while you eat.

For example: Stuck at my desk. Anyone else in the same boat? #businesslunchclub

2. Start a discussion about a topic that you might normally talk about over lunch. You’ll engage others in topics that interest you and shape the discussion on Twitter.

For example: How has the economy been impacting your lead generation? #businesslunchclub

3. Participate in a discussion that someone else has started. You’ll add value to other people as you talk with them. Several people can join in at once, just like a real discussion.

For example: Re: lead-gen I’ve had to really ramp up the value of my offering. How about you? #businesslunchclub

4. Ask for help. Leverage your relationships to ask professionals for advice on issues you face in business.

For example: Can anyone point me to a good online bookkeeping system? #businesslunchclub

5. Get to know your followers. You have lots of followers but how well do you know them? Get to know them a bit better and perhaps you’ll discover some potential opportunities.

For example: Taking a break from work for #businesslunchclub. @IAC_Heather tell me a bit about your business

6. Talk about a joint venture or collaboration idea. Twitter is the perfect place to start up a discussion, test interest, and find experts to collaborate.

For example: @AaronHoos I’d like to work together on an ebook about sales. #businesslunchclub

7. Introduce a couple of colleagues who you think are a good match for each other. Network and help others to network. This is like #FollowFriday but far more focused.

For example: @IAC_Heather, you should talk to @AaronHoos about that book you’d like to write #businesslunchclub

8. Visit BusinessLunchClub.com and meet other people who are #businesslunchclub participants. Follow them to gain access to a whole new network of people interested in win-win business growth.

For example: Hi @AaronHoos I saw you on BusinessLunchClub.com and wanted to follow you #businesslunchclub

As originally posted on: Blog by Aaron Hoos

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But in my last post I mentioned that not all business growth is good. Growth that happens too fast, for example, without any warning, can cause financial, manufacturing, warehousing, and customer service problems galore.

In this blog I want to talk about another problem of too-fast growth.

Problem 2: Rapid growth that is unpredictable may decline and leave a burden on the business. I’ve seen this recently in a colleague’s business. Just two years ago, business was inferno hot for him! He was so busy he couldn’t keep up with orders for the product his business created. Then the economy slowed. Today, his business is sound enough to pay his bills and allow him to put a little away for the future so he’s not worried about feeding his family. But he is concerned about his tax bill. The spike was unexpected and when he pays taxes this year on last year’s income, he’s paying taxes out of less money this year than he was earning last year. Not only that, as a manufacturer of goods, he has a small storage unit full of unsold items. That’s because he ramped up production quickly during that busy season, but he didn’t anticipate the decline… so he was still producing a high number of goods when the slump struck.

Solution 2: When your business grows, manage it carefully. Don’t just ride the rapids with an oblivious smile. Be aware that it may eventually slow down. Make sure you have money put away for taxes and other expenses that might lag into a slower period. And, watch the warning signs very, very carefully to make sure that your production doesn’t match today’s demand… but rather, that it matches tomorrow’s demand. Warning signs might include slowing orders, but even that might be too late. Get in the habit of proactively calling your customers and estimating capacity into the future. Offering discounts on bulk orders, even when times are good and customers are willing to pay top dollar, can help you keep your finger on the pulse of your customers’ needs.

So, business growth that is not carefully managed and spikes, then falls, can also be costly for a business in inventory and warehousing, taxation (and other lagging costs).

In the next blog, I’ll talk about one more business growth problem I’ve seen.

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I said that the first part of the conundrum of committedness is: The more commitments you have now, the less time you have to generate new commitments. But the less time you spend on generating new commitments, the fewer you will soon have.

But there’s a second part to that conundrum and that is: your new commitments aren’t fixed. In other words, your prospects aren’t perfect. You can (and should) market to fill your pipeline but not all of those prospects will react in the same way at the same time. Some will come to market faster than others. Some might suddenly buy more at one time than anyone else. You might have one quarter where all of your prospects fall out of your pipeline and sales diminish.

Let’s talk about the consultant example again. The consultant has several clients (“commitments”) and he or she stays busy with them, carving out just a little bit of time to market because it’s important to generate new business. When all progresses well, it’s a perfect system. But then “part 2″ of the conundrum kicks in and the prospects suddenly (and unexpectedly) buy more. What should the consultant do?

It’s a tough balance. Turning some away might be the wrong answer in today’s economy. Putting in extra hours is probably a good idea. But there’s a risk to this sudden influx of new commitments: the consultant notices that he or she doesn’t deliver as quickly anymore. And some might say that he or she is working too long each day. And there’s the risk that this “overwork” will diminish the amount of time to market.

Guess what. There’s no easy answer. Every business needs to find that special state of Zen in which they have a healthy number of commitments to continue earning an income but marketing in such a way that there is and continuously full pipeline. And they need to acknowledge that new potential commitments could suddenly increase and they should be prepared for it… but not to the detriment of their business today.

So, the consultant should leave a bit of ‘wiggle room’ (but not too much) to market and perhaps a bit more (but not too much) just in case there is a sudden influx of clients. And the manufacturer should leave just a bit of excess inventory (but not too much) to manage any surprise and they should have a plan in place to produce more inventory (but not too much) if demand rises unexpectedly.

In the next blog (tommorrow), I’ll give some more ideas about what businesses can do to work with this conundrum.

Speak Soon,

Heather

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2. The conundrum of committedness – part 3
3. When Business Growth is Bad – Part 3

Millions of people have watched their investment portfolios and job security vanish before their very eyes. Chances are, you’re among them.

The news is depressing, and it is challenging to suddenly lack confidence in your ability to retire at 65. So what is your response going to be? Most of the people who watched their portfolios and job security disappear are going to take the wrong action: they are going to do nothing and hope that they come out on the other side of this dark economic tunnel unscathed.

My advice to you? Don’t join them! Don’t run on autopilot for the next months or years and “hope for the best”. Instead, embrace the recession.

Yes, you read that correctly: embrace the recession. Consider the recession your opportunity to start a business and redefine your economic future. Now, some people might think that a recession is a bad time to start a business, but I think it’s the perfect time. Here’s why:

1. People still buy things in a recession. The key is to offer a product or service that is still purchased in spite of the economic downturn.
2. Other businesses, which were operating before the recession, are facing the economic challenges of staying afloat because their business model is designed to profit in a strong economy. You, however, are coming in lean and mean because your business model recognizes the recession and allows for it.
3. Working from home can be cheaper than going to work. With gas prices and food prices spiking to all-time-high levels, it might actually cost less to stay home and work there. Cut back on those restaurant lunches, fill the tank much less frequently. Oh, and don’t forget that some of your home ownership expenses will now become tax deductible.
4. As a self-employed business-owner, you’ll have greater career confidence because you will be deciding the future of your job, not someone who is higher up in the organization. What’s more, with every sale you make, you’ll be building your own job security and hastening your retirement (rather than lining someone else’s pockets without any assurance that you’ll have a job tomorrow).

There are other benefits, too: You’ll reduce the stress you might feel in commuting through rush hour traffic at the beginning and end of the day, and you’ll also be doing some good for the environment!

So, that leads to the next question: How should you embrace the recession?

My first piece of advice would be to find your passion. What do you love to do? I love to work with other people and help them guide and manage their business. I do this through consulting and project management services.

Next, see what the market needs. By performing a marketplace analysis, you’ll have a clear idea of what people are buying during these tough economic times. That will allow you to shape your products or services to suit them.

When you find something that you enjoy doing and that other people need, you’ve got a great match! You probably need to develop the product or service so that it is a profitable offering. You likely need to create a website and other marketing material so people can find you and transact business.

And then you start selling.

This list looks simple, but it’s a lot of work. Don’t feel like you need to do it all yourself. You’ll actually come out ahead if you do the work you can do well and you outsource the rest to skilled, competent service providers who are experts in these areas.

Don’t wait for your portfolio to disappear. Don’t wait for the pink slip to show up on your desk. Take charge today and embrace the recession!

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