In short – carry on as you are. The worst thing would be to start panicking and not following your plan. Knee-jerk response is not the way to respond and panic action is often ill-thought out.

If your business is starting to experience a slowdown as your customers think more carefully about where to spend their money, don’t automatically reach for the knife and start cutting spending. Particularly, don’t automatically cut things that seem non-essential, like advertising.

Better to review your spending and look first to things that won’t have a knock-on effect on your revenue (which will make you cut your spending again etc etc). Try to find costs that you can lose without damage – look to your suppliers, reduce inventory and tighten things without just cutting.

At the same time, the markets have not disappeared. It may feel a bit like it or like it is going to but it hasn’t. Steal business from someone else – work harder to win business, market harder, more aggressively and in a more targeted way. The pie may have shrunk slightly but it is still a pie and you can still get a big slice of it.

Look to your marketing plans and activities. Approach all your customers and see if they would like to buy something else or if they know anyone else who your business should be talking to. Work hard, be creative (do cheap things!). This is not a long article on marketing or prospecting. If you want help, a free coaching session is easy to request. Email Jon and pick his brains for ideas – no strings.