Or is the future a place to which you are just going?

If people are to survive in difficult times they must hone their minds and think more effectively. The many fortunes commenced in the Great Depression of the 1920s and ’30s are probably attributable to this. Other and more recent economic downturns have seen similar successes arise.

So where will this leave you in these current economic conditions?

Your personal views of the future will change when you make your own luck and in doing so you will change your own capabilities and skills. Luck is something you make for yourself.

The challenges you will face as a small business owner and manager in the year ahead are certainly greater than you are likely to have faced so far in your own lifetime. But with these challenges come opportunities, opportunities to create your own future. The alternative is to be lead into somebody else’s future, and to accept the inevitable consequences.

Take these five steps to create your future.

1. Focus on your key customers

Can you identify your key customers? Your key customers are those customers in the market niches which provide the majority of your profits.

Compared to other customers, key customers will buy from you in larger amounts and more frequently. They do so because they believe they have developed a relationship with you based on trust, trust built upon your meeting their needs and solving the emotional, personal and business problems they may have.

So in difficult times you will seek to ensure that your competitors do not do not win these customers, preserving your relationship by nurturing and protecting them.

2. Prime Plan B

Despite fixing your attention on your key customers you could still be bought down if their business or industry is negatively affected by negative economic conditions. Just relying on those customers coming through the door may not be good enough.

The steady stream of key customers may slow right down if adverse economic conditions have a negative effect on their industry or business.

So have Plan B.

The essence of Plan B to to have already determined other markets that are either doing well, or are likely to do well, and identified the prospective clients in those markets. Secondly you should have established how you are going to secure them.

3. Master your business

Really knowing your business will assist you both look after your key customers, and understand how to develop Plan B customers.

Doing everything in its proper time with the data to support a little thought and analysis will go a long way to protect and improve your position at times such as these.

You will make better and more effective decisions if you are in possession of some facts and data.

4. Ensure your marketing is effective

Ineffective marketing is a waste of your time and money. There is just one justification for your marketing, and that is SALES. If your marketing is not achieving sales then it has cost you time and money for no return. Yet another profit leak.

The medium you use for your promotions needs to be targeted at your key customers, and not every Jill, Jack and Bill in the population. Now is not the time for a scatter gun approach.

Ensure your sales message attracts and keeps your prospective customer’s attention, and then leads him to take action.

5. Develop systems and procedures

All really excellent businesses have more than scraps of paper to thrust at new employees saying „This is how we do this“. They have good systems and procedures, properly documented, well laid out and readily available.

If you have been in business for a few years, it is highly likely that you have developed sound procedures. But it is equally likely that you haven’t documented them.

Formalizing your procedures makes sure that you less likely to be recovering mistakes.

You will develop your own future, changing both yourself and your destination in the process when you take take these five steps.

Want to find out more about creating your future, then visit Adam Gordon, Profits Leak Detective’s site to obtain a free copy of his 7 Clues to a Profit Leak for some useful tips on identifying profit leaks in your business.