OK – lets face it, for many of us getting our heads around the world of Blogging, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and about a million other social media formats, can be a challenge. But we have to face up to the fact that if you don’t connect with the rest of the world through at least some of these communication channels, your business will suffer and as the years go by, it will only become more of an issue. So what can we do?

Well I am starting to see a whole new industry develop for 12-17 years olds. They are being engaged by their business owner parents to manage the social media aspects of their business, and they do it on a monthly retainer. One business owner I was chatting to in Sydney recently said that she paid her daughter $150 a month – and in return her daughter had to do two Tweets a day, provide one blog article a week and update the Facebook site daily. The mum provides a brief on the subject matter and what she wants to say, and the daughter puts it together and makes it smart enough to work in this environment.

Now I think this is a great idea. All of a sudden our kids can be tax deductible – at long last!!!! But seriously, we can outsource a part of our business that can be really challenging for those of us who are technically challenged and time deprived, to individuals who not only get the media where we want to promote ourselves and our business but they actually live in there anyway. And of course, if they don’t do their job, they don’t get paid. Perfect.

It’s just an idea, but one worth thinking about. Perhaps it’s time to outsource your social media marketing to the teenager on the couch.

From my experience there are two kinds of businesses in the world – those that have had tough times in the past and those that will have tough times in the future, it is simply a fact of business life. Survival is all about what we do when we are faced with tough times and that is exactly why I have written BULLETPROOF YOUR BUSINESS NOW.

I have broken this book into 4 distinct sections. The first covers the steps we need to take at any time to make sure our business is BULLETPROOF. The second section covers what action we need to take when we start to get nervous and the third section is all about what to do when “it its the fan”. The fourth section is for those businesses that don’t make it, which will sadly be the case for many.

BULLETPROOF YOUR BUSINESS NOW is easy to read, my advice is relevant and I guarantee that your businesses chances of survival will be well and truly improved if you follow my recommendations. Ross Gittens, an acclaimed business writer and columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald had this to say  -

“A remarkably sensible, practical and useful book for business owners who want to be masters of their own fate. Andrew Griffiths knows his stuff.”

Ross Gittens – Author, Sydney Morning Herald Economic Columnist

AVAILABLE WHERE ALL QUALITY BOOKS ARE SOLD IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND.

I read an interesting article recently talking about how Apple had ramped up its advertising and business development activity when all of its competitors had cut theirs back. Interesting to see that Apple has had incredible success in recent years by adopting this approach and going against what other similar companies are doing.

The article explained how Apple had recognised that with an economic downturn their competitors would cut back because that is traditionally what they do. At the same time Microsoft had issues with its new operating platform with at least six months time lag before it could fix the issues. Apple saw this as an excellent opportunity and they ramped their advertising spend up by almost thirty percent. Will it pay off? I would say yes it most certainly will.

There are definitely two schools of thought out there in tough times. One is not to spend anything on business development because consumers and business customers won’t be buying anyway. The other is that times like this provide the perfect opportunity to go on the front foot and business develop to pick up new customers whilst the competition is doing nothing.

Personally I prefer the second. Surely we should always be in business development mode? Economic slow downs and other issues may slow demand for certain things, but they don’t stop demand. It normally means we just have to work harder to get the business.

I spent a few years working in the tourism industry. I was an international sales manager for a subsidiary company owned by the major Japanese shipping conglomerate, NYK. Part of my job was to travel the planet to work on new tourist markets for Australia. The tourism industry always seems to be affected by every issue imaginable including economic crisis, exchange rates, epidemics such as the Avian Flu, terrorism, strikes (like the infamous Pilots strike in the late 1980’s), dramatic weather events and just about every other issue imaginable. Yet throughout it all, the industry keeps going, it looks for new markets, it redefines itself and it keeps pushing to find new customers. I think it is the most tenacious of industries and I have a lot of respect for people working in it.

Necessity makes tourism reinvent itself, try new initiatives, invest in long term business development and be as proactive as it can be. It is a survivor industry. Others seem to just give up as soon as things get tough.

The key is that when times are challenging, you have to do more with less. You need to hit the pavement, you need to foster relationships with existing customers to help them grow, you have to think more creatively and do the hard yards. But it will pay off. I have seen this approach work time and time again. 

If you aren’t growing perhaps you’re dying?

Any business that is constantly trying to do what they do better has to be well on the way to success. This attitude is one that any customer notices the minute they walk into a business, just as they notice a business that simply doesn’t care. So how does a business constantly improve?

There are so many ways I don’t know how to start. We can improve the way we communicate with our clients, we can make it easier for people to buy from us, we can keep working on the appearance of our business ensuring it is always clean and tidy but also fresh and modern, we can train our staff, we can be at the forefront of product knowledge on what we sell and we can have an open mind that lets us look for new and better ways to run our business.

When you are committed to constant and never ending improvement it really does show. This attitude rubs off on our staff who start to look for ways to do things better as well. Customers are more likely to come to you with ideas to improve your business because you clearly care enough to listen to what they have to say. Suppliers note this attitude and are more likely to want to help you grow your business, perhaps giving you new products to try, special deals or even just extra support when you need it. And your competitors will respect you.

In my mind these are all very good characteristics for a growing business. However, the most important area that needs constant and never ending improvement is you.

As a business owner we need to commit to learning new skills, to look for ways to do what we do as individuals ever better, to research our industry and be a leader in this industry, to read and broaden our knowledge on a range of subjects that will help our businesses to grow, to be trained in areas that make us better leaders and to always be open minded enough to find new ways to do things.

With this comes a degree of flexibility that is a key component in the overall BULLETPROOFING strategy. Any business that isn’t committed to becoming better all the time is ultimately going to die off. Just as any business that is too rigid to change, or too lazy to change or too bored to change will face the same fate.

Committing to constant and never ending improvement adds an air of passion and excitement to a business. In my mind, this is the fuel that powers a business to true success.