For most of us, we have market shifts when it comes to our competitiveness in our pricing or the demand for our products. These shifts could be influenced by the stock market, a pandemic, the weather, or laws that are passed- just to name a few. We must always try to anticipate market shifts and begin to plan accordingly when possible. If we are unable to anticipate changes for the good, or bad, we need to be ready to immediately react. We have to be mentally ready, we need to have our plan of attack ready and we need to have our money ready.

Saving thousands in the short term can cost you millions in the long term.

We should always look for ways to maximize our marketing dollars by increasing the ROI on our current marketing budget. In some cases, this may lead us to decrease our marketing spend to maximize our ROI. Other times, we may need to increase it to capitalize on the opportunity in front of us. Regardless of the market conditions, you’ll never hear me tell you to not market or to not staff your business in a way that gives you the ability to be successful. To completely cut your marketing or vital players on your team because your market is not ideal is like discontinuing any working out or any healthy eating habits because your metabolism isn’t ideal. If you do this, you get fatter and if you cut marketing and key team members you’ll not only not grow- you’ll go the other direction. 

One reason it is important to continue on with marketing and proper payroll is because even though you don’t see tremendous success or growth during these troubled periods you probably aren’t factoring in where you’d be without those efforts. Maybe you see zero growth over a 12 month period. This wouldn’t make anyone super excited about the money spent but if you consider that you may have gone backwards 10% without that investment all of the sudden you can now see the short term, but more importantly, long term benefit of staying the course. This is just like having a metabolism problem but being consistent with exercise and eating healthy. Maybe that individual doesn’t end his year with a 6 pack, maybe he looks the same as he did the year before but when considering he may have put on 20 pounds without those actions I’d say that’s a win.

Another reason to continue to market and staff appropriately is to be positioned to capitalize on market shifts. Whether it’s the competitiveness or the demand of your product- you’ll want to be in a position to win. If the market shifts in your favor and you are starting from ground zero while your competition was ready to rock- you’ll get crushed by them and completely miss the boat. Saving thousands in the short term can cost you millions in the long term.

Assuming you are positioned for success when this shift happens you need to take action. It isn’t time to pinch pennies when the wind is to your back. Figure out where to allocate the funds you had sitting on the sidelines waiting for this moment. Invest your money in the direction of what will give you the biggest competitive advantage at that time. This could mean more team, more leads, more trucks, more mailers or maybe even a second location in some cases. Don’t be reckless. Know your numbers and go crush your competition.