Personal Steps to Improve the Economy
Rex asked a seemingly superficial question, “What are you doing about the economy?” As I began to answer, I realized I was doing a number of things worth sharing with you, so I documented the entire conversation.
NOTE: For the past 15 years my business (probably like yours) has done nothing but grow. But all of a sudden (probably like yours) it hit a snag. Volume, cash, fixed expenses, and unlike big business, no bailout – or should I say, I’m my own bailout.
The list below contains both business actions and money actions, and they are actions I took the moment I felt the business world, and my world, was in jeopardy.
Here’s what I have done to date for my business and myself:
• Eliminate my own salary. The first move of a true entrepreneur.
• Cut every unnecessary ex-pense. Line by line. Item by item. If I didn’t need it, it went.
• Based on numbers, cash flow, and predictions, I cut staff. Quickly, honorably, openly.
• Preserve morale. Train at-titude for all remaining people. Leave all morale benefits and long-term
benefits in place. NOTE: Internal cutting reduces morale to zero. Cut people, not salaries. If you must
cut salary, cut your own first.
• Create a small internal “trust” team, and meet as frequently as necessary. I put as much family
and other insiders on the team as possible to help figure out what is best for the business.
• Study and continue to study money numbers. I make certain that I have a mini financial picture of
my company every Monday. This gives me peace of mind, and warns me of any actions I need to take
THAT DAY.
• Predict cash flow. I know what cash is ex-pected over the next 90 days. This way I can have a
realistic idea of what REALLY needs to be done. It’s NOT a “burn rate,” it’s a snapshot. And a planning
tool. People who post “burn rates” expect to die. I expect to live, thrive, profit, and succeed. Burn rate,
a term invented in the dot.com era, contains two of the most negative words ever perpetrated
in business. And incidentally, most of them burned.
• I immediately became closer to our sales and the selling process. No one has ever cut their way
to success. I became sales manager, and began getting and giving daily feedback.
• Forecast sales. While selling cycles ALWAYS take longer than predicted, this is a way to help predict
new money.
• I talk to my customers to get a feel for their market. This gives me a cross section of
information, and helps me get a real- istic picture of how things really are.
• Observing more than ever. Antennas up. Staying alert as to both warning signals and
opportunities. And taking action accordingly.
• Live in the now. This eco-nomy changes daily, and while I try to spend as little time
as possible being media-flogged, there is an amount of business information necessary to
understand what is happening, and react to it. I am paying attentionto TODAY.
• LIMIT media exposure. Five minutes a day is all I need. I invest the rest of my time in
my business.
• I am not afraid to risk. Part of being in business for yourself is the understanding that
risk is part of the process. I have always been wil-ling to risk all to win. Now is no exception.
• I am not afraid to ask. For help, for advice, for understanding, and for business.
Here’s a clue: Don’t listen to “experts” predicting what might happen. They have no idea what’s going
to happen. One thing is certain: You can make it happen.
There are more actions. There are more rev-elations. There are more secure moves to make.
And there are more risks to take. 
Return to Ingram's February 2009
Jeffrey Gitomer is author of The Little Red Book of Selling and The Little Red Book of Sales Answers.
P | 704.333.1112
E | salesman@gitomer.com