Squeezing more out of less: Slow times as the catalyst for future success

July has been a slow month for us. Traffic to our site is down, and there has been a proportional decrease in the flow of new clients coming in. It’s nothing to panic about, it’s just enough to leave me feeling unsettled and therefore very motivated to do something about it.

It has been this uncomfortable slowness that has ultimately made this one of our more successful and productive months. In fact, the work we have done this month will be critical to our future success as we’ve been forced to squeeze more out of less. The discomfort and stress of a lull has led to a much stronger business.

Less traffic to our website forced us to focus on improving our lead capture and follow up. We’ve refined and added to our capture mechanisms and are continuing to add to our follow-up. We’ve switched over to a new CRM and follow-up service (Infusionsoft – which I’ll be writing a review on very soon) and it’s been a fantastic transition.

When traffic picks up again, we’ll get more out of it. Rather than getting 2 leads for every hundred visitors, we’ll now get 7 or more. Better follow up means that more of those leads will eventually become clients. We are talking about at least a 300% boost in lead capture efficiency and that doesn’t account for the more effective follow up. I’ll trade a slow month of sales for that.

When slow times hit, it’s a kick-in-the-pants to get things done that are easy to put off when new clients are rolling in effortlessly. The work that goes into the lean times eventually allows you to more fully capitalize on the times of plenty.

I’ve never operated a business when we weren’t in a recession (we started just as the recession was setting in) and I’m starting to think that is a blessing. When the economy picks back up, we’ll have a tight, efficient operation forged by the constant pressure of a down economy.

I guess this post doesn’t have any brilliant insight you can’t find anywhere else it’s just a reminder to see the silver lining to a tough economy, the opportunity that lies hidden in struggle, and the optimism and strength we can gather from looking at things through a positive lens when it would be easy to do otherwise.

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Tagged as: Commentary, economy, Marketing