Recession proofing your business!

 

How are you personally weathering the economy?

  At this point everyone has been impacted, perhaps you, or someone you know has either been laid off, taken a job that is below their skill level, or even lost a home.

The media works diligently to continuously re-enforce your fears by talking about it constantly. 

It is a perfect time to just STOP- turn off the media stream for just a minute and ask yourself:

Have you recession proofed your creative business?

1)    Don’t make sweeping changes:  

      I know a business owner that is actually turning away a huge network of business because of 1 bad experience with a former colleague, they feared as a competitor. 

      Look at the big picture, if you’re in business -competition exists,

      what differentiates you from your competitors? And how does it help your customers?

2)    Increase sales:  Create bundles, lower price point items.  Offer special “tour packages” where they get a cd and t shirt for $20

For special recession busting bundles make them in easy to spend denominations $5, $10, $15, $20-

 “Free-Demo coasters”- put together a little FREE 3 song sampler in sleeves- w/ the name of the songs but more importantly your name, website, and booking contact info. and place one on every table in the venue your playing in as a FREE gift. Then during the break wander walk around and thank everyone for coming out. (make sure you have someone working your merch table!   You NEVER know who is in the audience!  My most successful show had 3 people sitting in the audience, that one person was a producer who booked us on a national tour.

3)    Reduce Inventory:  Are you just finishing a new cd? and you have lots of old buttons / stickers / t-shirts from your last tour or promotion?

Create Recession Buster Bundles

Go green and recycle packaging- 

One of my bands uses old paper towel rolls to pack the t-shirts in

It makes them easy to pack for touring and really easy green packaging for fans…  on the side in sharpie the write a sm md lg  description.

Another artist re-cycled Calistoga bottle caps to make buttons for a special event.

What Recycling packaging ideas are you using for your creative business?

I would love to hear about it in your comments below.

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Photo Credits:

Tamra Engle SJL Buttons

Wilie Coyote http://agonist.org/files/active/1/wileecoyote.jpg

Link:  is your merch table a cash cow?

http://guitartam.blogspot.com