The question is rather, what are you going to do about the coming recession in your small business. As a small business, you can avoid a recession. Large corporations can't. If the economy goes into recession and they have a 30% market share, that 30% is going to shrink no matter what they do. As a small business, you just need a few extra customers or a few extra projects and slightly lower costs and you'll be OK.
Let's look at costs first. If things are already a bit slow, this is the time to look at your long distance, cell phone and Internet service providers and see if you can reduce these costs. Also look at other suppliers and see if you can consolidate to get lower costs. Even if you don't reduce costs, consolidation will reduce administration time and you'll need more time to go after those extra orders. Speaking of time, take this opportunity to simplify your business structure wherever you can. You're switching to maintenance mode so you don't need spare capacity for growth or complicated structures for future development. Make everything as simple and easy to run as possible.
Once you have overhauled your own business, your focus can shift to two other areas. The first is your existing customers. A customer is much more valuable in a recession so make sure to keep your existing customers happy. Make sure they're getting competitive pricing, superior service and great value. Add a little extra now and then to make sure they appreciate you and keep you in mind.
Your second focus is past customers and past prospects. While you may be tempted to go out and try to rustle up a bunch of completely new customers, this is really difficult during a recession. By definition, during a recession there are hardly any new customers entering a market so you'll have to take your new customers away from your competition. They, of course, are doing their best to hang on to what they have so it won't be easy. Better to focus on people who already know you or whom you've dealt with before.
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