There are highs and lows in business. The low moments are when profits are low due to low sales, high expenses or low working capital. The causes may include eating into money that ought to be set aside for business operations, a long or sudden sickness or misfortune that used up business funds; this leaves the business in need of working capital to sustain operations. Here are a few possible solutions to saving a struggling business:
Evaluate the situation.
Know how much profit or loss the business is generating, possible reasons and available solutions. The problem can be low stock levels, low sales, high levels of sales on credit or high levels of purchases on credit. In any case, it’s important to know exactly why things aren’t going well. You can’t fix what you don’t know.
Invest in marketing.
If your business is struggling from a lack of customers, there are many ways to market your business cheaply. Create fliers and hand them out around town, run a discount or promotion to get people in the door, promote your business through Facebook groups and Whatsapp, or even pay for advertisements in your local paper or through Facebook.
Talk and negotiate.
If you are short on stock, talk to suppliers to extend more stock and more time to pay. If your normal customers are no longer coming, talk to them to find out why and address the concerns. You may need to renegotiate your rent, cost of supplies and other costs to lower the expenditure and increase your time to pay.
Draw a new budget.
Find out how much you have, how much you can access and how much you are spending. Adjust your budget to make sure your income is more than your expenses as much as possible.