How to Turn Around a Struggling Business: Tips and Real-Life Examples

The first thing most business owners do to try and save their business is cut costs, but that only slows down the inevitable. What you need to do is breathe new life into a dying business by jump-starting it. This article will help give your dying business the jolt of energy it needs.

Learn Why Customers are Leaving

Establish a feedback system with customers

• Use an app like Customer Feedback Surveys or Fuzzy Surveys to collect feedback and understand what customers really want
• This data can help you create better products and marketing strategies that increase sales and loyalty

Adjust Your Mindset

Developing a positive growth mindset can help you stay on the path to success

• A growth mindset is defined by the belief that your intelligence is changeable and improvable
• Learning lessons from your mistakes
• Every loss becomes a win
• Staying flexible
• Inspiring yourself
• It’s easy to work yourself to the bone when your business is going through a rough patch

Set goals

Goals help guide your focus and sustain momentum

• Goal setting is linked with higher motivation, self-esteem, and self-confidence
• Start small
• Set frequent, smaller goals and reward yourself after completing them
• Create a series of mini goals that lead to a big goal

Take action

Be proactive. Don’t sit back and wait for things to happen before you take action.

• Take preventative actions that are preventative and also fix glaring problems.
• Even if your business fails, take it as a learning experience. You only need to be right once.

Invest in marketing

Create consistent, evergreen content that is value-driven and searchable.

• Appearing in videos immediately gives you authority and trust. People are more likely to do business with you after they see social proof and-(free-value) you’ve provided.

Understand Your Target Audience

Identify your target audience

• It helps you find new customers easier and bring more qualified buyers to your website, which results in more sales
• SUGAR found its buyers: Indian woman between 20 and 27 years old, live in metropolitan areas, consume digital content, are influenced by global trends, want trends Indianized

Learning from your business failures

Recognizing that your own business is struggling is the first step.

Finances

The main reason small businesses fail is a lack of funding or capital

• Not paying attention to cash flows and profits is a common business mistake for many entrepreneurs
• There are a lot of expenses to pay for
• If a business has slim margins and low cash on hand, it has a higher chance of failure

Management

If you’ve never managed people before, it’s challenging to hire, train, and manage employees.

• Without a strong manager, it’s easy to mismanage critical aspects of the business such as finances, hiring, or marketing. It’s important to let go of the wheel and feel comfortable bringing on strong support to make up for your shortcoming.

Why do small businesses fail?

The main reasons are as follows:

Plummeted from $2.8 million per year to zero

Don’t be afraid to scrap what you have and change directions

• Identify the bright spots in your current business, you can cut the rest and direct your team toward more successful business opportunities

Rosie’s Café in Monona, WI

Almost went out of business in May 2020

• Owner invested last of her money into a coaching class
• Helped her focus on her passion, positioning and profits
• Had its highest profiting quarters last three quarters in a row
• Broke highest day and week sales records three times in the last six months
• Gave staff raises
• Has been pursued by a TV show that features bakeries

Perform a SWOT analysis

SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) helps you identify problems, work on changes and improvements, and make the right decisions to help create a successful business

• Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors, or something that you can control.
• Opportunities and threats are normally outside your control.

Take a hard look at your finances

Track finances weekly or monthly to stay on top of things

• Common financial challenges include: Limited cash flow, Unforeseen expenses, Too much debt, Poor tax compliance, Mixing personal and business finances, Reporting oversights
• To get your books under control, use these articles as a guide

Poor marketing

50% of SMB owners do not have a marketing plan

• Marketers with a documented strategy are 313% more likely to report success
• If you don’t understand the basic marketing strategies and how to apply them to your business, it’ll be hard to create and implement successful campaigns

Business Planning

A good business plan helps you clarify strategy, identify potential roadblocks, understand your resource needs, and evaluate potential business opportunities.

• It solidifies your business model before offering any products to customers, and shows possible revenue streams so you can plan ahead.
• You can create a business plan any time.

Get funding if you need it

Shopify Capital is one way to get quick and easy access to funds.

• Use the funds to hire new employees, bring on an expert consultant, stock up for seasonal sales, purchase bulk items on discount, order new materials, fuel marketing campaigns

Pivot and change direction

Pivoting can mean many different things to different businesses

• For some, it might mean changing your business model or moving to a completely different vertical or changing your target customer.
• Think critically about how you can pivot in these uncertain times if your business is struggling.

Marketing was always a moving target

The Bookish Shop found that they lacked a cohesive sales funnel that nurtured customers from the first touch point all the way to the point of a repeat purchase.

• They decided to use new product launches that were already taking place to fuel advertising content and fill the newly built sales funnel with compelling creative assets.

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