Survival of Small Businesses — Part 2 — Sales & Revenue Generation Ideas

Continuing with my earlier Post 1 in the series.

Option 1 for Small Businesses — Selling more. Getting more money in…

Background…

Discretionary spending sectors will have a tougher time. Consumer durables, travel, entertainment, restaurants, etc.

FMCG and other smaller ticket expenses sectors will fare well. Essentials, FMCG, etc.

Any sector which takes away a chunk of cash from people’s pockets will have a tough time.

Sector which helps people ‘make money’ or ‘save money’ will thrive. Banking, Employment, Freelancing/Side hustles, Discretionary savings etc.

A lot of small businesses have been in the ICU for a long time. For the businesses themselves getting more money — Increasing Topline has to be the first priority. Other lower hanging fruits (costs savings) is a close second… more on those in the next post.

A few thoughts and ideas on possible scenarios/strategies for small businesses to grow sales and revenues. These come with an assumption that all businesses are willing to continue.

For B2B businesses

• Acquiring Big ticket customers — larger distributors, agents, cash-&-carry customers etc.
• Acquiring Industrial buyers / OEMs as customers — fraught with time and efforts dependency where they put you through a rigorous vendor evaluation processes
• Supply to governments and government agencies (PSUs etc)
• Disrupting existing distribution channel/s (risky but with proper planning and management doable). Provides a further benefit of reducing costs
• Re-model businesses and disrupt… which can be done with minimal investments

For B2C businesses

• Develop new products in allied fields
• Develop new markets for existing and/or new products
• New/er applications for existing products and developing markets for such application areas
• New/revamped distribution channels

Strategic Options / Initiatives

• Redefining credit terms with customers AND suppliers… creating win-win scenarios are the lowest hanging fruits
• Re-fund the Working Capital (WC) gap through external borrowings
• Scale down business. Take a breather. Scale up with renewed energy…
• Realign to post-covid19 scenario… business model, revenue model, organisation, structures, operations, people, operational systems
• Identify and form JVs and Alliances. Piggy Back each other…
• Co-brand, Co-market, Barter supply chain
• Aggressively avail whatever benefits government comes up with for the small businesses

Operational Initiatives

• Revamping and/or Re-skilling Sales/BD teams
• Repurposing Sales/BD teams and aligning them with a changed post-covid19 market scenario
• Getting fresh blood (if current team is ineffective)

Rehash, Realign, and Reactivate every aspect of business to survive and grow in the post-covid19 scenario.

Will continue with Option 2 in the next post covering Cost Control.