PCA Articles

What’s All This “Recession” Chatter About?

There’s been a lot of chatter recently about an upcoming recession. Living in a post-pandemic world—where service industries saw more of a boom than a decline—the word “recession” can quickly snowball into a panicked thinking or worse, panicked planning.

I wish there was a way to be 100% recession proof. Unfortunately that’s not the case. What I can say is there are ways to increase the likelihood of your company’s ability to weather potential economic downturn. This better prepares and equips companies for if (or when) a recession hits.

People had time on their hands during the height of COVID-19. While being stuck home, they noticed things they didn’t like about where they lived (specifically how things looked). Changing paint colors, adding wallpaper, wainscoting, or (my favorite) gold leaf to make it more, well, home-y.

The good news of this new found interest in home improvement is (possibly) less money spent on marketing! But… Other areas in the business, like hiring, onboarding & training, and material purchasing, are needing more attention.

What Does This Mean for My Business?

While allocations towards sales and marketing may have decreased, a recession would flip that around. Plus—if the 2008 recession taught us anything—when the purse strings start to tighten, hired-out home improvements are some of the first items cut. This means more money being allocated towards sales and marketing to generate leads. Talk about a vicious cycle of money placement for effective business functionality!

Although it’s been doom and gloom to this point, let the rays of hope wash over you now!

There’s still time to invest in your production and coordination management. Starting here ensures you’re creating the most efficient process to save company time and money AND create a great customer experience from start to finish.

By investing your time in these areas now, if a recession does hit, you can rest assured knowing the funds you put towards sales and marketing are being best spent. Your team will have an established fast, more effective system they can rely on while depending on each other.

Ways to Leverage Your Time Capital for Production and Coordination Management

There are many, many ways to leverage your time capital for production and coordination management. To keep things easy, let’s focus on three:

1. Communication:

How are your production and coordination teams communicating with:

• Each other.
• Those back at the office.
• The client.
• Anyone and everyone.

Chances are, there are multiple mediums being used, which can easily create communication colleague silos, project misunderstandings, and client experiences. Spend time now finding a streamlined way to keep communication documented in one location. Train your team on how to use it. It can (and most likely will) save you headaches, internal conflict, and low client ratings in the future.

2. Processes:

There are some standard operating procedures or processes in place at your company. But ask yourself:

• Are they written down or is it an “it is what it is” type situation?
• Are there areas in your processes where time and resources are being wasted?
• If you answered “yes” or “I don’t know” to any of these questions, it’s time to invest some time in how you and your team get work done.

By investing your time capital here and now, you can clean up, expedite, and improve inefficient processes. Start leaving clients satisfied with your services and give your team a solid framework that reduces frustrations, bottlenecks, and other roadblocks. Makes for a happier team!

3. People:

Your team is your company’s most valuable asset. It’s never a waste investing time in your team.

By providing opportunities for additional training, skill development, or other areas of career progression, your team will have a greater level of enjoyment at work and grow in their advanced skill set.

Big picture? You have more people on your team capable of taking on more responsibilities, allowing your teams to be more flexible (and let’s face it, flexibility is the name of the game here).

Start Leveraging Your Time Capital

Don’t wait until your business is starting to feel the pain and pressure of a recession (or even a general dip in the economy). Trust me when I say: Your future self will thank you for taking time today to invest time capital into your people, processes, and communication methods.

 

About The Author