The bad news:  Somebody shot my dog.  The good news:  I’m teaching my cat how to hunt.  Let me explain.

The recession caught me between a rock and a hard place.  First, my small consulting business crashed, losing more than 50 % of my business in six months. 

Even worse, it caught me with my pants down.  I was tooling along on autopilot until, all of a sudden:  “Hey, where’d the business go?”  I assumed that my business was fairly recession-proof.  After all, it had been in the past.  This time, no.  Like trying to herd pigs in a cornfield back through a broken fence, I’d shore up one contract here, lose two there, as clients desperately tried to save their own businesses by cutting back.  One 20-year client sadly told me, “You have to understand, John, I cannot submit ANY outside invoices this year!”

Definitely not business as usual.  The game had changed (as it has for most of us), and I had missed the signs (as have many of us).  Somebody shot my dog, one that for 20 years plus had been stirring up super business like a keen-nosed pointer in cornfield stubble crawling with quail.  

The good news:  I’m teaching my cat how to hunt … and it’s one smart, keen-eyed stalker of a cat.   Poignant metaphors aside, I finally woke up. I didn’t know how I was going to retool my business, but I knew I had to and was going to.  Here’s what I did:

• I studied what had changed in the markets.   The biggest change:  Customers were cautious.  It wasn’t a matter of cutting costs.  Instead, I recognized that, while they still had needs for my services, I had to do a better job of  presenting the value of those services in helping them achieve their goals. 
• I studied what had changed in my business … or for me, what had NOT changed.  I realized that I was operating under a 1999 business plan and marketing mindset.  Back then, my competitive advantage was that I was not only the best in terms of teaching clients how to maximize their profits by kick-butt marketing strategies; I was pretty much the only one in the markets in which I worked.  That void had filled in over the last decade, and I was locked in keen competition with interlopers. 
• I re-evaluated my competitive advantage.  What made me special?  Unique?  I found two things:  First, experience. I’ve been a blood ‘n guts business owner for 25 years.  During that time, I’ve seen it all, experienced it all.  Second, when I analyzed my records and talked to my clients, I found that, on average, my clients receive roughly a ten-fold  ROI on my services.  So, if my services cost $5,000, their direct return tends to be $50,000 in the first year alone.
• I set out to bang the drum long and loud, telling my story and connecting with clients old and new.  I now summarize my top competitive advantages by telling my prospects and clients, “What do I bring to our relationship?  ‘Twenty-five-ten.’  Twenty-five years of business experience that helps assure my clients a ten-fold return on the price of my services.”  
• I plan to review my plan every year.  I have no intention of getting caught flat-footed again. 

So, somebody shot my old dog.  Fortunately, my cat’s working out just fine.  Plus, I have a litter of new puppies I’ll be training and turning loose in the coming months and years.

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