Create a Strong Fall Forecast for Your Image Business

Create a Strong Fall Forecast for Your Image Business

By Caterina Rando, MA, MCC

As you prepare for the fourth quarter, you have to look at a lot more than the latest fall colors and forecasted style trends. You also have to consider the economic forecast and what you can do in your image business to ensure that the challenging economy that is impacting many businesses, does not negatively impact yours.

Many businesses thrive in difficult times. You can take some key steps to ensure that yours is among them. Apply these ideas to your enterprise and pretty soon everyone will be asking you for the fall business forecast.

Keep it Positive
It can be easy to get cynical about revenue when all around you, you hear other business owners complaining about things being slow and that their costs are rising. However, most of your reality is directly linked to your perception. If you think business is slowing down, you start to slow down and you now have a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, make a commitment to tune out the nay-sayers, smile more, focus on thinking about what you can do to make things better and make a commitment to stay focused and positive. Positive energy gives you more physical vitality, which allows you to get a lot more done.

Pump Up Your Planning
The productivity experts say one minute of planning saves four minutes of task achievement down the road. Take time every day to review your monthly, quarterly and annual goals and take time daily to plan and re-plan how you are going to meet those goals. Stay focused and in action. You have heard the image tip of preparing today what you are going to wear tomorrow, making sure nothing is soiled, everything is in good repair and none of your accessories or garments need any attention so that you can get dressed quickly and easily in the morning. It is the same with your business – plan today for tomorrow, this week for next week, this month for next month.

Work On Your Business
There is working in your business, which is what you do when you are fulfilling your agreements with clients – doing what they pay you to do. Then there is working on your business when you are doing things that will provide more revenue, more efficiency or less cost to your business down the road. For example, you are working on your business when you take time to develop a new product, learn a new system that expedites tasks, or even when you take a class to get new ideas. When you work in your business, you are creating what I call now-money-now; when you work on your business you are creating more-money-later. It is important to do both to build a thriving profitable and sustainable business.

Reconnect with Your Champions
Your champions are clients and colleagues who think what you do is fantastic. They are a great source of referrals for you. When was the last time you invited a few of them out for lunch, held an event to thank them for their support or simply picked up the phone to reconnect and discuss how you could help each other? You will find these connections can result in lots of new revenue for your firm.

The fall is a great time to do a special event introducing your best pick for “Fall Fashion Must Have’s and What to Avoid,” or if you are in the etiquette business do a program on “Etiquette and Innovations in Gift Giving and Receiving.” Come up with some reason to invite everyone over for a fall get-together- even a good old fashioned client appreciation event will do wonders for your business.

Reassess Your Implementation Team
If you are like most business owners you have more ideas than you have time to implement them. That is why you need a team of people who help you get things done. They do not need to be employees – they can be people who are specialists at what they do so you can focus on your areas of expertise. Get someone on your implementation team to do your internet marketing, web updates, bookkeeping, internet research, event management, search engine optimization and whatever else you can think of that is better left to someone else.

Look For What is Missing in the Marketplace
In challenging times your clients prefer to get a new product or service that they need from you, who they already know, like and trust, rather than getting a new product or service from a new vendor. Ask yourself what else do your clients need that you could provide? The answer to this question could be a huge new revenue stream for your business.

Consistency Over Time Creates Results
One common challenge I have seen over the years is that for some businesses, when things are going well the marketing gets neglected. Whatever you do to get clients, make sure you are doing it consistently, especially in challenging economic times. If you are consistent in what you know works for you, your business will do just fine.

Which of these ideas discussed here do you think you need to put some attention on right now to have a strong fourth quarter in your business? Pick one, get started today and watch your revenue grow.

Caterina Rando, MA, MCC, shows image professionals how to build thriving, profitable and sustainable businesses by establishing themselves as experts in their fields. Caterina is the creator of the Image Business Breakthrough Program. Visit her website at www.imagebusinesscoach.com to download your free copy of her ebook “How to Create An Image Business Breakthrough.” She can be reached at (415) 668-4535 or via email at cat@imagebusinesscoach.com.