by John Eberhard

Many companies today have experienced a decline in sales or income, or both. In such a climate it is tempting to get the idea that it is because of the economy or the federal government or some other reason, and that there is nothing that can be done about it.

In fact I would go so far as to theorize that many business owners today have experienced a decline in income, and have decided that they just can’t expand their business right now. That it is impossible to reach previous income goals. That they have to wait out the bad economy or some similar idea. And so they aren’t even trying to expand their businesses.

So is this conclusion correct? Is it impossible to expand a business today?

Well it certainly is true that we have a challenging economic environment. And if you are doing things the same way you were prior to the economic downturn in 2008, then chances are you will not be setting any income records. But I submit that it is not true that you cannot expand a business today.

So what do you need to do differently today, in order to actually expand a business in this climate?

One fact that cannot be denied is that people have different attitudes today about spending money than they did prior to 2008. So you cannot continue to promote to your target public with the same type of message or approach that you used five or more years ago.

How do you find out the current attitudes of your target public towards your product or service, and towards spending money today? You survey them. You do market research.

And if you survey your target public correctly, you can learn more about their attitudes today and from that, figure out how to better motivate them to buy your product or service. It may even take more than one survey project to get the right answer on how to motivate people better, but it can be done.

And if you know how to properly motivate people by understanding their current attitudes, then you can increase your leads, sales and income. And you can promote with confidence.

The key is to understand that if your promotion is not working like it used to, or if your sales and income are down and you just can’t figure out why, that you are not hitting your public with the right message any more. Their attitudes have changed, and you need to find out how they have changed. You have to make a commitment to surveying your public and finding out what they think right now. That will open the door to better reaching them and better motivating them to buy your products or services.