While marketing guru Seth Godin offers these 7 tips to startups in a down market, really these are tips all businesses — including photography businesses – can use to work smarter and prosper.
1. Recognize you have less competition
You should know that this is the best thing that ever happened to you because it makes it easier to be the winner when so many people are dropping out.
The dip is closer and shallower then it would be if these were the boom times.
2. Focus on building value
The emphasis should not be on “how do I raise money and hire people.” The emphasis should be on “how do I build value today.”
Because, every day you’re doing this, you’re building value, connecting with people who find you irreplaceable, then you will become irreplaceable.
3. Expect your costs to go down
Understand that in a down economy, not only is there less money for people to spend on you, but you have to spend less money to make stuff that’s worthwhile.
4. Don’t hire like it’s 1999
It makes me sick to see organizations that race out to hire 50 people, because they think that get big fast matters. And then “it’s not their fault” when they lay off 20.
Well sure it is. It’s totally your fault Mr. entrepreneur, because you shouldn’t have hired 50 people to start with.
5. Focus on the irreplaceable
The goal is NOT how fast can you hire as many people as you can. The goal is how irreplaceable are your people. How much can you boil down the essence of what you’re building?
6. Get lean to beat the behemoths
When we look at the home runs online. They are not the Daily Beast with $18 million and hundreds and hundreds of people. They’re Twitter, with a tiny team of people who have a very fine focused, vision.
7. Be disciplined about what you’re building
One of the things the guys at 37signals say is, if you want to be on budget and on time, what you have to do is, the day you hit the budget, or the day you hit the deadline, you have to ship. And it’s a race.
So that’s how you do it. You don’t say how do I get more money to match the spec? You say, how can I get the spec out there for the money I have?
These points and the video interview by Andrew Warner are posted on Mashable.
I love number 7. It should also include to deliver on your promises. Don’t expect customers to come back for more after you were late or delivered less. Do whatever it takes to deliver quality on time.