Whitney Greer

The economic slowdown lament is like an earworm –a horrible snippet of song that won’t leave your head.  It’s generated a “why bother” attitude among many business people I know.  I don’t mean to rant, and I really do possess a sympathetic ear, BUT there are businesses not only surviving, but thriving.  They offer lessons [...]Read More »

The economic slowdown lament is like an earworm –a horrible snippet of song that won’t leave your head.  It’s generated a “why bother” attitude among many business people I know.  I don’t mean to rant, and I really do possess a sympathetic ear, BUT there are businesses not only surviving, but thriving.  They offer lessons every small business or consultant can borrow from. 

 Who’s thriving?  (I hear that tone of disbelief.)  When asked that same question a few months back at an SFPRRT luncheon, business columnist Andrew S. Ross cited businesses with a good value for the dollar.  

 Case in point, Vanessa’s Bistro, a wonderful Vietnamese tapas place in my neighborhood with a nightly waiting list.  For $11, you and a friend can share the amazing shaking filet mignon salad in garlic brandy butter.  This dish (one of my favorites) is so popular, and the service so friendly, that the business is now expanding into a second location.
How can you package your service or product s so it becomes a great value instead of a high-end luxury or low-end waste of cash?

Anyone with a decent phone knows how easy it is to download a $5 app without thinking – as easy as buying Altoids at the check-out stand.  Ethan Nicholas, developer of a tank artillery game called iShoot, quit his job when his app made in $37,000 in a single day.  I’m not suggesting you join this crazy gold rush.  But, selling lots of small items with instant gratification attached to lots of people can build quick revenue.  It certainly explains why the mini cupcake is so appealing at $1 a pop.  Guilt free flavor that doesn’t sting the pocketbook.
How can you create small, instantly gratifying service or product from your existing business and distribute it to lots of people quickly?

Maybe those ideas don’t work.  Sometimes a brainstorm jumpstart question only yields a head scratch.  Perhaps you’re a small consultant, whose corporate clients have all dried up.  There’s another avenue you can try called diversification – the road taken when you find a problem that needs to be solved.  For instance, a web developer in Colorado, in an effort to answer potential clients’ SEO questions, discovered the number one search word string around funerals had no website.  (I can’t give away too much here, but she’s not an undertaker.)  By researching the field, and applying her design talent to create a website matching the search word string, she now happily makes more from Google ad words each month than she did as a graphic designer. 
How can you find a problem no one else is solving and apply your talents to creating a solution?

 I’m not saying the answers are easy, but there’s inspiration out there if you look.  Or you can find it at one of my upcoming Small Business LaunchKit Workshops.  As for me, I’m no longer listening when people start playing the slow economy song.  I’m whistling a more inspired tune.