I empathize with you. This is a common theme today for small business owners. I am not sure what your detailed expenses are but this should be your starting point: Develop a 24-month budget for your business on a cash flow basis. List income and expenses. Try and match payment of large items with expected cash receipts. Look at your 10 biggest expenses and see what can be targeted for reduction. Consider updating your benefits package (e.g. an HSA versus traditional health insurance premiums) or implementing a summer/flextime/part-time plan so you can trim some payroll while keeping key employees on hand for when business picks up. Hire independent contractors for one-time projects. Ask your vendors if you can convert your annual or semiannual expenses into automated monthly expenses. Eliminate those expenses that do not add value to your business. Visit your banker and discuss a working line of credit. Keep marketing yourself.

When economic times are challenging the first step everyone takes is to trim expenses — and rightfully so. In addition to the budget trimming measures that you know you must make (and really, as a small business owner you already know what those are), you might also consider this time as an opportunity to work on building your business. Start by reviewing your business and financial plans to determine if they need tweaking or a complete overhaul. Take the time to meet with your Certified Financial Planner, CPA, attorney and insurance agent to review your finances and risk coverages; they may be able to point out areas where you can cut expenses and prepare yourself for the future. If you need assistance with your business plan call Chris Olson at the Business and Employment Center. He has a wealth of resources available and most, if not all, are at no charge to you. Consider building a personal board of directors for your company. This may be a group of colleagues, clients or owners of complementary businesses who meet on a regular basis to exchange business ideas, discuss issues/successes/problems and generally help each other grow their businesses. Finally, as a marketing firm use your own resources to develop a marketing strategy for your company.

Working your way through a tight economy is sometimes easier said than done. Obviously, the first thing you need to do is make a thorough evaluation of your budget and see what items are required and which are discretionary. Usually your biggest expense is your payroll. Do you have too much staff? If so, you may need to make the tough decision of eliminating a position. If you really think that your business will turn around in the near future, then this may not be the best choice to pursue as you may not be able to hire your trained staff back when your business turns. If, on the other hand, you have an employee that isn’t really meeting your needs then this is a good opportunity to make changes. You also may want to look for other expenses that you can defer if possible. An example would be funding your retirement plan. If you have been funding as you go, you may want to wait until the end of the plan year to make your contributions. You may even have to make the decision to skip a year if your budget is that bad. If you are making matches to employee contributions, you may need to cut them back or even eliminate them. Just be careful with this option to consult your retirement plan consultant to make sure you do not violate any rules. If you think that your business will turn in the near future, then you may want to look at a line of credit to keep you going until the revenue comes in. This also is risky, because if your business does not recover than you will just have more debt to pay back. My biggest piece of advice for you is don’t make decisions that will help you in the shortterm but hurt your business in the long-term.

First, try to educate your clients on the importance of keeping their advertising and marketing plans as active as possible. One of the worst choices business owners make when the road gets rocky is trying to save money in the wrong places. Many schools (including Harvard) have performed studies, and even student competitions, on what executives should do in an economic slowdown, bankruptcy, etc. The winners usually were the ones that kept their marketing intact. As far as your business goes, learn from the current economic conditions. Make sure next time you have a decrease in business you have a strategy and money set aside to weather the storm.