How to grow your business during a recession

Post written by Rob Minton
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I've been wanting to write this post for sometime. I've held back for various reasons - until now. I'm going to really open up and give you the real deal in this post. I hope that it helps you in some fashion.

The majority businesses are struggling here in the States because of the recession. The credit crises has had a major impact on almost every industry, including real estate.

My primary business, just like most others, has been negatively impacted by these events. Over the last 12 months, one of the largest new revenue sources for my business disappeared.This may have happened to you too.

When this happens, we have two basic choices:

1. Throw in the towel and surrender.

We do this by giving up each day. We don't pursue opportunities because we feel that they won't work out. Our thought process is: "What is the use?" Most real estate agents will not admit it, but this is the decision they've made. I see it every single day.

2. Work harder to replace lost revenue.

This decision requires that we step back and study the market for opportunities that we can successfully turn into money. We then must work very hard to implement action steps to take advantage of the opportunities identified.

Last year, I teetered on the fence with this decision within my primary businesses. Prior to 2008, I had some success and squirreled away a great deal of money. I also had created multiple income streams and successfully implemented my $4,000,000 Wealth Blueprint. This simply means that I could have decided to sit back and coast through the recession.

For some reason, I saw the recession as a challenge. I decided on choice number 2. This was a big decision because it forced me to completely reinvent my business. My business, Minton Publishing, Inc., was engineered around a high end coaching program for real estate agents. Agents could no longer afford high end coaching because of the sudden drop in home sales.

I began surveying my database of real estate agents asking them two questions. The first question I asked was: "What is your biggest challenge?" The second question I asked was: "If I could create one step-by-step guide that would help you overcome your challenge, what should the guide be?"

The answers I received pointed to several new business opportunities. I narrowed the list by testing a few ideas and decided to launch a new lower priced membership helping agents solve their biggest problem. This membership is Renegade Reports. Since the launch, the membership has gone gang busters. This new membership entailed a great deal of work to launch and still requires a great deal of work each week to maintain.

This membership sold so well that I decided to launch another new lower priced membership. This membership is engineered around my personal financial wealth building plan. It's called the $4,000,000 Wealth Blueprint. This just recently launched and it is starting to grow just like Renegade Reports did. Guess what? This new membership entailed a great deal of work, too.

I share all of this because I'm trying to show you what you must do to build a business during a recession. You cannot continue to do the same things if they aren't working anymore. You've got to look for market demand and then create new products or services around this demand.

To be 100% completely honest, I'm working harder now than I've ever worked before. You should be too.

Change is required in business. The good news is that we have the ability to quickly change our businesses. Large companies with thousands of employees cannot change so quickly. They have layers of management and must spend hours in meetings before taking action. We don't.

We can decide today to launch a new product or service and have it in the market within a week. We don't have to push our ideas through any committee. We don't need board approval. Its just you and the decision to take immediate action.That's it.

When one of your income streams decreases or disappears, go replace it. Don't sit back and be a victim. Life is what you make of it. I worked way too hard to sit back and watch my revenue disappear. So have you.