The Recession Mistake That Cost Me $1.5 Million

There is a certain talk about what will happen with the economy depending on all recent changes. Personally, I think we head to a boom and not a recession, but I understand that some are nervous about what can happen.

I thought this would be a good time to share my own experience on this subject. I have the business in the business for 27 years, and we are currently doing more than $ 110 million in revenues. I have almost 400 salaries to pay every week and I have no investors or collected capital to resort. We have to obtain income every week, without exception.

I have directed this company through two recesses and I have found something interesting about my own business that can also be applied to yours.

Listen to me: a strong economy is excellent, but a difficult economy requires a similar road map. Therefore, do not stop your marketing or expansion plans in advance of what can happen.

Let me explain …

In 2008, I made an error that cost my business, postcardmania, more than $ 1.5 million.

In 2020, I made sure not to repeat that error, and in reality we end up growing income by 10% that year.

Today, our finances are healthier than ever. We get used to averaging the growth of annual income of 5% in the decade prior to 2020 to an average annual growth of 17% after 2020, a 239% increase in the growth rate.

I prove much of our recent growth for making better decisions when 2020 became difficult. As a result of these experiences, now I feel ready to meet any economic climate, and I also want that for you and your business.

So, here is my experience and advice on what you can do to feel, regardless of what can come.

Related: how I made a marketing error in $ 1 million in new businesses

Duration The great recession of 2008, reduced my marketing and cost me millions

For years, banks approved high -risk mortgages to housing buyers with a qualified low. When enough of those homes breached their loans, they married a real estate market bust and a bank emergency. The event triggered one of the worst recessions in the history of the United States.

At that time, my business was based on customers in real estate and mortar industries: 46% of our income came from thesis clients.

One of my financial advisors suggested that my marketing reduce to preserve cash. I went against my best judgment and followed this advice. The following year was our worst financial. While we only lost $ 150,000 in 2008, those losses shot at $ 1.5 million in 2009 due to the damage we did to our marketing.

For 2010, I raised our budget to the levels before the cannon and even a little more to quickly correct the problem. As a result, 2010 ended up establishing a new income record of all time for us.

Related: what I learned when spending $ 5.9 million in marketing last year

I corrected my mistake marketing more and marketing smarter

When I corrected the course and increased our marketing, I also diversified it. I immersed myself deeply in our company’s data to analyze where our potential clients and income came from, or as deeply as I could.

As owner of a small business that begins with zero funds, I did not have many tools to solve this, and what is worse, I had the home properly hammered the importance of tracking my staff. You would be surprised how many client industries were classified as “unknown” when we clearly knew their industry: we had designed postcards for them!

We recommend those postcards designs to tell us which industries were buying us more and generating more income. We discovered that, although before we had depended a lot on the real estate and mortar industries, there were humid doses or different types of businesses that bought us direct mail that we had never activated.

So, to correct my great recession fog, I not only increased my marketing, but also began to guide new industries that were shown that they were buyers. With the thesis two adjustments, our numbers recovered and finally improved.

I swore to myself that I would never cut my marketing again, and this was fine to the test 12 years later.

Related: Do not reduce your marketing budget to coverage in a recession thesis 3 cost reduction measures.

In 2020, I kept my marketing stable, I won potential competition customers and finished the year 10%

The great recession was quite terrifying, but the 2020 pandemic was equally terrifying in some way. Companies closed from left to right due to closures, so many of them also stopped buying us. Our weekly income collapsed by anger or 41%.

The instinctive reaction was still to stop spending, but I had learned my lesson, and I knew that these cost cuts were not going to come from my marketing budget. We draw funds from our savings to keep payrolling and marketing underway.

They were a terrifying six weeks. Every week there was more money than we had entered, and our reservations were constantly exhausted bees.

But not only survive, we bloom!

In the next six months, our potential clients increased 9.24%, 186 additional to the week without doing anything different. While everyone else around me gave and reduced, we stayed strong and moved on, and that allowed our marketing to be more effective than ever. He drove directly to more potential customers and income for us.

Before the closures, we are damaged $ 1.25 million per week, and then we have damage for $ 1.3 million. After all, the annual postcardmany revenues increased 10% that year despite the chaos.

It was not easy, and sacrifices were made, but it was worth it because it is much later than many of our competitors who did the opposite.

So what am I doing right now to be recession -proof? I am investing heavy in my marketing and I continue expanding the parts of our marketing that drive first -line growth. If you are worried about the economic climate, I suggest that you look for your marketing and client data now so you can make informed marketing decisions to ensure that you have the necessary impulse to overcome any recession.