In chats with our community (you!) about where you most want our support, one message came through loud and clear: How to recession-proof your business.
This is just a starting point and we won’t stop here but I want to remind you that the best growth strategy for any economy is:
- #1 controlling what you can control
- #2 keeping the fundamentals strong AF
There are FIVE phases to becoming the strongest & most profitable version of your brand – one that grows through every economy!
- Strategy. Define a custom path forward – one based on your unique market opportunity, goals, and current resources. A zag-when-they-zig *growth strategy* that catapults you past your competition (who are all doing the same damn thing). With a recession looming, we focus on low-risk, high-impact areas. We make plays that have asymmetrical risk: the reward is a higher probability than the risk.
- Message. Craft your story that meets the moment, cuts through the chaos, and connects with your people so that in a world where they have way too much on their minds, they can’t stop thinking about you. At the moment, you want to be re-evaluating the message you’ve sent for the past 24 months – it should change to reduce risk as much as possible for your customers.
- Performance. Delivering that message to the right place, at the right time – for ultimate resource efficiency. Resource-efficient is my favorite type of strategy, recession or not.
- Infrastructure. Posting jobs, hiring team members, learning to delegate, or leading creatives? Distinct growing pains arrive with each new level. Always, and especially pre-or-mid-recession, mentorship is key. The kind that can ease the pain, offer foresight, and deliver solutions, so that you can move faster and keep as much profit as possible.
- Impact. Designing your social impact looks different as you reach new heights and your resources grow. What starts as better company culture can evolve to extend beyond our organization to drive a broader scope of positive change. We’re in this unprecedented moment where human rights tragedies abound – and we want to do something about it – but that’s only an option if our brand lives to tell about the recession. For the next three months, give yourself permission to focus on phases 1 through 4.
These are always the 5 steps. And we revisit them over, and over, and over again as our brands grow. It’s true what they say: What got you here won’t get you there. But we *never* abandon the fundamentals.
And just to be clear: We’re not planning to survive the recession. We’re planning to thrive through it, emerging stronger than ever with a community of business leaders who’ve scaled their brand, boosted profitability, and cultivated their purpose beyond profit.
If this has you nodding your head and cracking your knuckles, learn how you can work with us as a private client.
In your corner,
Katie
