You might be wondering why I wrote the word “GROWING” in all caps. Because that is exactly what you need to be doing right now. Many business owners freak out and they hide in their caves waiting for the bad times to pass by. That doesn’t make any sense. If you are just waiting until you see the light at the end of the tunnel, your ship will most likely sink.

I would like to share with you some ideas to grow your business during the economic crisis.

Profit from your current customers
As obvious as this idea may be, you will be surprised with the number of business owners that sell a customer just once. Call your previous customers and find out how you can help them. According to statistics, someone who bought from you in the past is five times more likely to buy from you again than a new prospect.

Offer as much value as you can
These days, consumers and companies are more careful with their expenses. Give them great deals. It’s time to start running some specials!

Get out and meet people
Join networking groups, ask your customers for referrals, invite prospects for a coffee. Your chances of growing your business are not very good if you spend most of your day behind your desk.

Create alliances and find new strategic partners
Leverage all your relationships. Find other businesses that serve the same market that you do but are not your competitors. Find a way to work together with them and refer business to each other.

Educate yourself
If you can afford it, go to seminars and events in your industry. If your budget doesn’t allow you to do that, then read some books and blogs. Also contact your chamber of commerce; they will often host business classes. You will need new ideas and knowledge to stand out in a market so competitive.

Reduce your overhead
In case you didn’t know this already, your overhead is killing you. Go over your last quarter’s expenses and analyze each item by asking yourself this question: “is this costing more money than it is making?” If the answer is yes, get rid of it immediately or you will have cashflow problems really soon (if you are not having them already).

Internet is, in my opinion, the best tool ever invented. I just love it. It has made starting companies a lot easier. However, most Internet companies fail to make any money. Why is that?

Is starting an online business different from starting any other business? Yes and no. Yes, the technologies change. And no, most basic principles still apply. You still need to understand your target market, learn what they want, and provide them with it in a cost-effective way. You still need to learn what their buttons are and how to push them. You still need to know about finances, leadership, management, marketing, and sales.

Don’t think for a moment that just because you open a store online and Internet reaches the whole world people will buy from you. Venture capital firms call this “The China Myth” because so many entrepreneurs pitch investors on the idea that all they need is 1% of the Chinese market to be successful. The question is “How do you plan to sell to that 1%?” Don’t even think that because so many people have an Internet connection and you open an online store “someone will bite”. It just won’t happen unless you make it happen.

As an Internet Marketing consultant I’ve spoken with several people who start an online business, a month later they haven’t made enough money, and they decide that the business was a bad idea so they start a new one. Another month down the road they are in the same place. Nothing happens.

So many people are always looking for the next “hot” thing to do, the next “hot trend”, the next easy way to get rich overnight… so many people follow the so-called gurus who make money online by selling them e-books on how to make money online!

Don’t give up so easily. When you start a company, work on it until it becomes successful. Don’t give up after a few weeks. The truth is that a couple of weeks aren’t enough to figure out the right business model.

Another mistake I see often is people thinking too small and not considering the monetary value of their time. A woman told me the other day “I have an online business. Last month I made a profit.” When I asked her how much money she made and how much time she invested she said “I made $45 last month and I usually work 3 hours a day.” After doing the math we figured out that she was making $0.68/hour. McDonalds pays a lot more than that. I said “Good, that’s a great start. Now let’s think big.” and we went over a plan that helped her make $1,500 the next month. Your time is worth money. If you want to become rich overnight or make some easy money, don’t waste your time. If you are determined to building a solid business, Internet is one of the best things that could ever happen to you.

After redesigning over 100 websites I now have a pretty good idea about the most common web design mistakes.

If your site is making some of these mistakes, fix them now! Otherwise, you are leaving money on the table every single day.

Bad Layout
Your navigation and layout have to be simple, obvious, and intuitive. If you expect your visitors to figure out how to get to where they want to go, prepare for them to leave. Don’t make them think, make it obvious for them. Forget about “cool” navigation. Make it simple and elegant.

Slow Websites
Keep your website light so it loads fast. There is nothing more annoying than those “Loading… 1%” messages. People don’t want to wait. Studies show that if a website takes more than 8 seconds to load, 21% of your visitors will leave and if it takes more than 20 seconds to load, 43% of your visitors will be gone! This is a tragedy. There are ways to achieve excellent designs that are also very light.

Bad Colors Choice
Most web designers are not professional graphic designers. They never learned what colors work well together and most importantly, what different colors mean. Make sure your website uses the right colors for your market and it is not hard on your visitors’ eyes.

Bad Music Selection
In most cases I am against music at all. I am talking about music that auto-plays (background music). A lot of people will visit your website from work and they don’t want annoying music popping up. Music also makes websites slow to load. If you decide that you want to have music on your website, choose the right one for your audience.

Under Construction Pages
What is the purpose of “Coming Soon” pages? This looks really unprofessional. Just don’t have them at all! Who wants to read an “Under Construction” message? If you want to generate curiosity about a section that you will be adding soon, have some teaser copy and possibly a list-building box: “Sign Up to Be Notified When We Release this Feature”.

Information is Hard to Find
This happens very often with your phone number and email address. Let’s say you own a restaurant. Most people visit your website to get your phone number and make a reservation. Put your number at the very top and make it huge!

Ads on Commercial Websites
If your website is supported by advertising, displaying ads is your business. But if your main stream of income is not advertising, get rid of ads. They look really unprofessional and they make you look needy.

Low-Resolution Images
There is nothing that makes me angrier than web designers who use low-resolution images. They look terrible! There are ways to optimize images so they are both light and visually appealing.

Splash Screens
Don’t waste your visitors’ time. They are on your website to learn about your company and services, not to see how talented your graphic designer is and the cool animations he can do for you. Don’t force them to take an extra step. They want information. Give it to them.

Passive Marketing
Your website is an excellent opportunity to tell prospects why your company is better than the competition, why they should buy from you, and ask them to take action. Be proactive.

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Your website says a lot about your company. Make sure you choose the right company to design your website.

Here are ten tips to help you choose the right design agency.

Do they deliver on time?
Make sure that the Internet Marketing Agency you work with can meet deadlines. Ask them if they can guarantee a deliver date.

Are they flexible?
Every company has different needs. Do they understand what you need and seem to be able to provide you with a website that is exactly what you need?

Do they create websites from scratch?
You will be surprised by the number of “web designers” that use templates. If they are going to take a pre-made website and just copy and paste your text, you might as well do that yourself (assuming you know how to copy and paste text). Make sure that they create a custom design based on your brand and what it represents.

Do they offer testimonials and references?
A great web design agency will have several testimonials from satisfied clients. You can also ask for references if you want.

Do they ask questions?
Good web designers will ask you a lot of questions before they get started to make sure that they can create exactly what you had in mind. They will also make suggestions and try to work with you to create a great design.

How good is their portfolio?
There is nothing that says more about web designers than their previous work. If they have created great designs in the past, chances are they will do the same thing for you.

How fast is the turnaround?
Make sure that they can finish your website quickly. There is no hard rule for how long a website should take, so shop around and compare turnaround times among different vendors.

How good are their prices?
Again, shop around and compare prices. However, don’t let price be the only decisive factor. Good web designers get clients daily who got a cheap design somewhere else and now they need them to redo it.

Do they try to sell you the most expensive design that you can afford or the one that you actually need?
Good web design agencies have a team of individuals dedicated to assist you and help you find out what you need. They need to be friendly, flexible, and listen to you. Their customer service center has to answer your calls within seconds. And you should talk to a person, not a machine.

Do they offer superior customer care?
Some web design agencies even offer live chat on their websites and 24/7 online support. More importantly, you need to feel that they care about you. You need to feel that if you have a problem with your website or there’s something you need to change, they will be there for you.

Who is on their team?
Bad web design agencies have amateur designers. Good web design agencies have professional graphic designers. Outstanding web design agencies have not only professional graphic designers but also web programmers, Internet marketing specialists, and project managers.

Don’t settle for less. If you have a professional graphic designer working for you, your website will look 10 times better. If you have an Internet marketing specialist, your website will be a lot more user-friendly, easy to navigate, and will help your business. If you have a project manager, then you will have one less thing to worry about. He will take care of everything for you so you don’t have to deal with designers and programmers yourself.

It is recession time. You might feel more conservative than ever. Redesigning that old, ugly website of yours might not be one of your top priorities at this time. I don’t blame you. In fact, your competitors are doing the same thing.

But what if instead of sitting back and waiting for the bad times to go away you decided to be proactive? What if instead of complaining about the economy you took advantage of this great opportunity where your competitors are doing nothing but waiting for a better moment to grow their businesses?

Few things in business cost so little and have such a major impact as your corporate website. Nowadays, few prospects will close a deal with you without checking your website first. In fact, that is exactly what you do when you are shopping around for vendors. Now, if they see a really aged website that hasn’t been updated in over a year and looks very unprofessional, what are they going to think about your business?

Few people realize that an ugly website has the same repercussions as inviting a prospect to a really ugly office and wearing a shirt with coffee stains.

Being myself a graphic and web designer, I realize that my opinion might be a little biased. But I know and you know that first impressions count.

Now, visit your own website and be honest with yourself: is it really professional? Will people trust your company after seeing your website? Now visit your competitors’ sites. Is yours better than or at least as good as all of them? If it isn’t, you are losing business every day. I can guarantee that.

I will be more than happy to take a look at your website and let you know whether I think it needs a lifting. No commitments, no strings attached. Just shoot me an email and I will take a look at it and write you a short review at no cost. I will also be happy to suggest ways you can promote your current website so you get massive amounts of traffic and new customers every day.

Let me know how I can help.