Recession planning / strategy

I’ve been thinking and working on a strategy. I’ve done fairly well with business over the last few years, but still took losses most years, due to putting money back in my business. I’m thinking that at this point in time, it would be very prudent to cut spending in areas that aren’t essential.

The recession is actually a cure for the problems we have had over the past few years, which would be over borrowing and overspending. Our country is now faced with having to reverse this trend. Our government seems to want to help by continuing to spend and print money. Those in leadership continue to say they don’t want to do this, but it is essential for our recovery. I don’t believe them. (Remember they were saying that our economy was fine not too long ago.)

As a business owner, what can I do to help America? I don’t believe the solution is to keep borrowing and spending. Rather, I’m focusing now on saving as much money as I can, reducing my operating expenses, and finding new work to do. Companies need to use this time to create new products, and generate new wealth in America. If we continue our patterns of consumption, but no new development, we will soon be at the mercy of everyone else in the world.

If you are currently struggling in a technology business, there are some things I can share to help you control your costs:

1. Outsource your servers. Reduce your internet connection speed tier, which will help you save money. Many hosting companies are out there that provide quality servers at a decent monthly price. The datacenters have much more bandwidth than any small or micro business would be able to afford. This will also give you and your customers much better speed. You might save some money by using your internet connection and hosting your extranet and intranet servers internally, but all it takes is a power outage or storm in your area, and you will be down. Datacenters are much more resilient to these types of issues.

2. Use VOIP. Buy yourself a decent IP phone. I have an Aastra 480i, and it works absolutely great. Sign up for a service such as RingCentral, or Gizmo, or use a Skype to SIP bridge. This saves me a few hundred dollars a year in telephone costs.

So if you have a small or micro business, this may be the environment in which we can thrive. We are much faster at adjusting to business conditions than larger companies. The kinds of services we provide will still be in demand in a recession. So let’s stay in the game, and work on generating real wealth for ourselves and for America.