Growing Your Business in Uncertain Times
As the second quarter begins, the outlook for growing your business is starting to brighten.
- Our economy is projected to grow by 2.7% — up from 2.1% projections.
- We’re forecasted to welcome 5.5 million visitors this year — up 103% from 2020.
- Real GDP only fell by 7.5% — which is a smaller decline from earlier forecasts of 11.7%.
- Consumer confidence hit its highest level last month since the start of the pandemic.
- And, over 35% of adults in the state have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
Hawaii’s road to recovery will be long and filled with obstacles but we celebrate these small wins anway. It gives us a glimmer of hope that our economy will rebound faster than what was initially predicted.
So what’s next?
Right now, owners and managers all over the country are thinking about how to grow their business in the coming year…and so should we.
The pandemic recession has deeply hurt Hawaii’s tourism industries. Recovery in these industries—even a partial one—is going to require a significant amount of hiring. The U.S. economy added 916,000 jobs in March.
Every single leader must focus their priorities on how to plan and operationalize their organization for business growth and scale in the coming months. For some leaders, this may mean taking a step back from working in your company to working on your company.
Here are 3 things to consider when growing your business in uncertain times.
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Unemployment rates are high — but hiring remains a challenge.
Higher unemployment rates suggest that there are more available workers in the hiring pool. But for many businesses, filling open positions remains a challenge. The fact is that collecting unemployment, or waiting to see what other benefits are offered through the new administration, remains an attractive strategy for some workers.
It will take businesses longer to fill open positions and reduced services will be prolonged. This delay can have a ripple effect on profitability (and morale too). Knowing this, employers can take steps now to reframe their hiring pitch, review their benefits package for its competitiveness, optimize (or even automate) manual hiring processes, assess employee sentiment and the like. Don’t wait. Do it now.
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Don’t overlook loyalty — reward it!
As the market is now waking up, don’t undervalue the loyalty of your customers who stuck with you when the bottom fell out of our economy. Reward them! Even the smallest of discounts or incentives are appreciated, and these perks are often what keeps customers engaged.
Sit down and really challenge yourself to come up with a creative approach to customer loyalty. It can be a lifeline, as well as a critical part of your business growth strategy. And not just customer loyalty, think about vendors or employees who were willing to be flexible during the pandemic. If you deepend or expand on these relationships, you may find a mutually beneficial opportunity for everyone.
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Business growth shouldn't look like doing more of the same thing — or doing it faster.
Lastly, as we rebuild our businesses and our way of working, creating value for customers, employees, stakeholders, and partners must remain at the core. While cost reduction and operational efficiencies are important, if businesses focus solely on these defensive strategies, innovation and value creation cannot flourish.
There is a profound opportunity to examine what’s worked for your business and customers during difficult times and translate that into new ways to rebuild your business for the future. What new thing will you try to help you bounce back? Pose this question to your managers, employees, vendors etc. Their answers may surprise you.
Want to know how ProService makes growing your business easier? Schedule a quick 15-minute business consultation to learn more.
