Recession Tips For Your Small Business

14 Sep 2022

During a recession, many businesses can suffer losses in sales and profits. This creates an unfortunate need for companies to lay off employees and make other budget cuts.

If a business isn’t looking for ways to ensure they have enough money to make it through any financial rough patch—like a recession—they might have to shut down temporarily or even permanently.

With any length of shutdown, employees lose their jobs, and customers are forced to look elsewhere for similar products.

What Does a Recession Mean for the Manufacturing Industry?

The manufacturing industry can be hit especially hard during a recession, largely due to supply chain issues. Even if only one supplier isn’t running correctly, your business is at a standstill. This creates a vicious cycle for manufacturers if they aren’t prepared.

SelfLube can help play a role in your success as a manufacturer. As the supply chain gets further and further out for deliveries, we’re here to provide replacement parts that outlast a recession.

Replacing parts for your machinery is expensive and time-consuming, not to mention the wait time for parts to get in. SelfLubes’ parts are self-lubricating, meaning they last longer than other parts on the market. They possess the advantage of having permanent lubrication built in, meaning that no additional lubrication will be required—ever.

In terms of total life cycle cost (i.e. when the cost of performing periodic greasing is considered), self-lubricating components are always less expensive than conventional components. Oftentimes, they’re considerably less expensive since there is the risk of the lubrication not being applied to conventional components.

Recession Tips for Your Small Business

When your business is heading for a rough patch, the primary objective is to maintain enough cash flow to get through it. Most businesses fail during this time, simply because they run out of cash.

You might be profitable on paper, but if you run out of cash flow, you’re done. Here are some tips on how you’re business can survive a recession:

1. Find some new business: If you are going through a rough patch, it’s likely that most of your customers are as well. This can be especially tough for B2B companies, but there are things you can do. Contact former customers with a welcome back offer. There is good reason to believe that they have a need for your product and the reason they drifted away may longer apply. Remember, there’s usually no such thing as a permanent “no.” It’s usually a “no, for now.”
2. Look over past leads: Think of those contacts that sat in your pipeline, but that you never had time (or simply forgot; we’re human) to get in touch with. Or, those leads that ghosted you at one time. These are already semi-qualified, so the chance of receiving their business is a lot better than getting business from cold calls.
3. Think outside the box: Identify prospects outside your normal circle of customers that may have a need for your product. The chance of success may be slightly lower, but the potential ROI could be huge.
4. Keep vigilant on collections: Contact past-due accounts every week. Try to establish some sort of promise for payment. If they renege on this promise, it makes you an injured party and gives you more priority in getting paid. Keep a log. Write everything down so you can refer to it in your next call. Try to get a partial payment, even if it’s only $100. Be nice. Be polite. Be sympathetic. It’s important to keep the dialog going, as it keeps you on the shortlist for getting paid.
5. Get an upfront deposit for new orders: For longer-duration work, negotiate some sort of progress payment. The customer may be hesitant at first, but ultimately, it’s in their best interest to pay upfront rather than later.
6. Keep the supply chain short: There are two reasons for this. One is that you can get by with a lot less inventory, which frees up cash. The other is that in a project of longer duration, a shorter supply chain provides a lot less risk. If a problem is encountered, a long supply chain doesn’t make for a quick resolution. The ensuing delay will not only cause customer dissatisfaction, it will also cost you thousands of dollars and future business.
7. Deal with quality suppliers: It’s simple; doing so means fewer problems and fewer delays, both of which burn up cash.

How SelfLube Saves Your Business Time and Money

As a small business ourselves, we’re always looking out for you when it comes to saving you money and time without compromising quality products. Check out how working with SelfLube helps improve your bottom line:

1. SelfLube can help on the supply side. We are a top-tier company in terms of quality and customer service, with 13 straight zero non-conformance ISO 9000 quality audits to show for it. We are a U.S. based manufacturer selling direct, which makes for an ultra-short supply chain. We also do customization, which reduces cost and shortens lead times. All of this helps boost cash flow for your business.
2. Our innovative self-lubricating products are your only solution for long-term success without buying replacement parts. Stop buying the same parts over and over again. Not only does this hurt your bottom line, but the environment.
3. Having to spend your time and resources looking for a specific part wastes a lot of time and money. SelfLube can help you mitigate a lot of that time and money by creating custom parts for you.
4. When you buy from SelfLube, you don’t have to wait for your part to be built in five different factories before it finally gets to you. We’re a local business with a small supply chain. Getting your part when you need it is important to us. That way, you won’t need to worry about our supply chain getting worse before it gets better like your competitors.

When it comes to your components, trust SelfLube to get you the quality pieces you need at a price you can afford. Contact us today to place your order!