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Welcome to this episode of Online Store Success. Today I’m chatting about 5 x things you can do in order to stay positive, stay profitable and have your business still ticking along during difficult times.
I know you’ve seen the news where it’s mostly all doom and gloom including the cost of living crisis and increasing interest rates which can make us want to completely throw out our business because everything feels heavy and people aren’t spending.
But I want to let you know that people ARE STILL definitely spending. I see it day after day in my student’s businesses and I know I’m still personally spending (and yes I most certainly do have a mortgage!).
I want to reassure you that despite the news headlines click-baiting us at every chance they can, we don’t have to buy into it. And while yes things are tough for many people right now, there are things we can do to remain both positive and profitable in business.
Here they are:
- STAY Positive. Adopt an abundance mindset, rather than a poverty one. Check-in with your inner self-talk and step away from the news. If you find yourself saying to yourself ‘No one is buying’ or ‘My business is doomed’ STOP. This is not the case. More than 30% of Australians own their home outright and are mortgage free according to Census results from 2021. So for around 30% of Australians (your potential customers) the interest rate hikes are possibly serving them on any savings they have. They don’t show these folks on the news because it makes for a boring story honestly… Doom and gloom hook us in. I’m giving you permission to step away.
Some practical ways to help ease the pinch for any rising costs in your business are:
- Doing a deep dive into your expenses checking if there are any areas where you might be overspending or no longer help you move the needle for sales in your business. That might include cancelling subscriptions you no longer use, Shopify apps that are laying dormant and DIYing certain aspects of your business such as social media management or paid ads management. There are possibly some areas of your business where you could save, and instead, batch your social media posts on a Sunday evening in front of your favourite show instead of paying an agency $1,500 a month to do it for you. Yes, it’s a little more work, but many can be used in other areas of your business, such as paying yourself! Some tasks we are more than capable of doing ourselves but just don’t like them. Check in with yourself and see if there’s a way to take back those tasks in a way that’s manageable for you.
- If sales have slowed right down in your eCommerce business, take a look at upcoming orders for products and do a true assessment of whether you need that stock. Calculate how much stock you have on hand right now, both cost and retail value and then check your average monthly sales figures for the past few months. How many months of stock do you have on hand? You are likely to have MORE than enough to keep you going longer than you thought (and yes this may mean shifting marketing focus to the ‘what’s in stock’ now products and moving away from the constant cycle of NEW’).
- Nurture your existing customers with special offers. These folks already know and like you so ramp up your efforts to win the back and make another order. This is your ‘lowest’ hanging fruit so to speak and will be the cheapest sales to acquire versus going after new customers
- Do a list clean-up and manually unsubscribe inactive contacts that are inflating your monthly subscription. If you use a system such as Klaviyo (my favourite), your monthly fee will be based on the number of subscribers you have and how many emails you send per month. Now I don’t want you to stop sending emails, or even send fewer because these are your ‘warm’ people, but rather I want you to create a segment of inactive contacts that haven’t opened one of your emails in the past x 6 months, despite receiving one. These contacts are costing you money, so go ahead and manually unsubscribe them. Then go and check your total active subscribers and the plan you are on and see if you can reduce it.
I hope these 5 tips were helpful to you. I want you to remember that business (and life) is always going to be a roller coaster ride of highs and lows and we need to ‘ride the wave’ so to speak. We can learn so much about ourselves and our businesses in the tough times that will have you set for success when things pick up again. You’ve totally got this!
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