The economic downturn is no time to guess what your clients are thinking. Before investing in gut feelings or past remedies, find out what your customers – and ex-customers – want. Just ask. It’s existing clients who offer the most potential for growth, and at the lowest cost. Talking to them is a good way to further develop or to start a customer relationship management program.
Market research will enhance the informal feedback you gather every day and could prevent you from making costly planning mistakes. No longer just for the big corporations, small and medium businesses usually know their customers well enough to do their own primary research – information direct from the source – on a scale that can still reap effective results.
Here are some tips on structuring do-it-yourself market research:

1. Many ways to get in touch
A direct mail campaign is the ideal method to survey customers, if your budget permits. Or, email or internet surveys are good options. If you have time, but no budget, consider including questionnaires with invoices or statements, or with direct mail campaigns already budgeted in the marketing pipeline. For the personal touch, sales consultants could distribute printed surveys on client visits or do them by phone.

2. Design for answers that give direction
Prune any questions that don’t directly contribute to collecting and analyzing information for making business decisions. If possible, design questionnaires with a single purpose, such as feedback on customer satisfaction or to test interest in a proposed new service. If seeking opinions on a few different topics, divide the survey into clear sections.

3. Plan for easy analysis
A plan for measuring results with uniformity is the first priority. Multiple-choice is popular because it’s easy to both answer and analyze, but you must accommodate all responses, including “don’t know” or “other”. A ranked answer system should include no more than five items for assessment because it becomes difficult to order preferences the more items are listed, making the answers less reliable.

4. Style for accuracy
Questions should follow each other with smooth transition. Watch the tone doesn’t pre-suppose a position or assume the respondent has particular information at hand, such as budget percentages, financial details or past purchasing statistics. Avoid vague terms like “most” and “least”, as everyone’s perspective is different.

5. Ask single focused questions
Each reply should be about one topic. Seeking a “yes” or “no” to “do you like our color and size range?” won’t work if you need to know whether your size range in particular is on target with buyers. Short questions save people’s reading time and also prevent you inadvertently biasing answers or creating confusion through over-explanation.

6. Seek truthful answers
Anonymous versus identified participation will affect the honesty of replies. Some loyal clients might simply not want to hurt your feelings by expressing their legitimate complaints; others may hesitate to answer about spending intentions and prefer to under-estimate in fear of sales pressure. In general, make sure your questions are non-threatening and make privacy policies clear if seeking special details.

7. Keep it brief
One page is the best length for a written questionnaire, and a ten-minute commitment is ideal. Any longer and respondents might set the task aside or give less thought to their answers.

8. Consider incentives
Even token rewards are welcomed by survey respondents. Corporate gear featuring your logo is likely to be as effective as items with a high monetary value. For even better response rates, promise the gift on completion.  Tailor your ‘gift’ to the respondent. A CEO might require more than a free pen or movie tickets to be tempted to complete your questionnaire.

9. Cover letter essentials
Your personal introductory letter should be friendly, brief and persuasive. If there’s no tangible incentive to participate, appeal to their business integrity with your willingness to listen, particularly if you are looking for suggestions on how to keep your business growing in slow times. Include how long the questionnaire will take to complete to increase response rates, particularly if it’s genuinely in the five- to ten-minute range.

10. Edit for variety
Change the question style throughout the survey to keep it lively. If 20 questions start with “do you think ...” the respondent might develop a rut of responses to match. Be creative in the writing style to keep the reader’s attention.

11. Ask why
It’s the most powerful question of all. Many respondents will be keen to elaborate on their opinions and their qualitative responses could prove to be highly valuable. Even complaints are important opportunities for business improvement, so make it clear that further comments are welcome. Provide a place to include it on the survey or an email address for sending additional feedback.

Despite the benefits of online contact any time, from anywhere, personal interaction is as good for business now as it was 20 years ago. In the world away from your desktop, your competitors are shaking hands with your potential customers over lunch or a laugh right now. What are you waiting for? Get out of the office and network.

Making personal business connections may take longer, but they are potentially as important as driving web traffic and planning your advertising campaigns. For relatively little expense, seeking industry events and other face-to-face business opportunities should form an equal part of your marketing strategy. 

When business is slow, mass marketing or email marketing your existing clients seems the obvious low-cost option to generate sales, but forging personal networks with face-to-face contact brings a unique set of advantages. And there’s no ‘delete’ key.

Networking builds trust

The important thing missing from online contact is the real connections that create genuine trust.

The advantage good networkers enjoy is access to more private or useful knowledge only available through personal contact. Filing unmanageable amounts of downloaded documents or exchanging emails is no replacement for conversations that spill over into further mutual contacts and unexpected opportunities.

Meeting with people also brings different skill sets to a business relationship. Online, you tend to stick to one topic or problem. Where a gathering incorporates socializing, common interests outside business tend to crop up too, leading to wider networks and experiences.

In person, you are also more likely to discover how someone’s organization works. The more ‘flat’ management structure of businesses today means that the ‘say’ in decision-making is spread widely among managers and employees. You could be chatting with one of the company’s key influencers, regardless of their title. The way information flows through a company is an example of the important detail you may learn from a real conversation that is unlikely to come up otherwise.

For potential clients, time spent seeking quotes and meeting new suppliers might be happily avoided by using a personal contact met through networking. If you made a good impression in a semi-social setting, you might simply get the order or at least a chance to quote along with a current supplier.

Consider taking staff along to networking functions or sending them to represent you if you can’t attend. This will boost employee engagement, particularly in uncertain times when spending cut-backs are threatening morale and motivation.

Types of networking

Depending on your industry and your business’ stage of development, there are events of all sizes and costs where you can meet peers, suppliers, potential customers or neighboring companies.

Chambers of commerce, local governments, community and industry groups are in the business of connecting small business operators. They welcome new members and participants for speaking, presenting workshops or sponsorship. There are niche events for women only, for small business and for new businesses. Trade shows often have after-hours events attached designed for networking.

During annual calendar events like, “small business week” or similar, there are often a series of activities designed for education and networking. An internet search should find when these are coming up in your city.

Tips for successful networking

Once you’ve identified the best networking opportunities for your available time, make the most of them:

• Be organized; arrive on time and take lots of business cards. Keep a positive attitude about the event and an open mind about the people you meet.
• If you’re nervous, focus on an outcome to suit your comfort level. Simply aim to “approach three strangers for a conversation”, or “meet the keynote speaker” or have a similar goal that makes attendance worthwhile.
• Smile, look people in the eyes and give a firm handshake. Give your complete attention, use people’s names and note special information on their business card for future reference.
• Listen. Switch off your phone and be ‘present’. Ask questions. You never know where a conversation will lead or who other people know.
• Have a sentence or two ready, describing your business, tailored with the listener in mind – ideally framed as a problem of theirs that you can solve. Don’t just list off your services or latest achievements.
• Make a note of how people prefer to be contacted. Some welcome phone calls over email; for others, only social networking like Twitter will get their attention.
• Don’t ‘oversell’. Pressing business cards on people before moving on to new ‘targets’ is a turn-off. Save the sales pitch for a follow-up meeting. 
• If you promise to forward information or put a new acquaintance in contact with someone, do it straight away. You’ll be remembered for being reliable – priceless.

The current economic downturn may have pushed fuel and vehicle costs lower for the time being but that’s not going to outlast the first signs of improvement. If you want to avoid being held hostage by increasing fuel costs and government imposts in the future it’s time to look at how you can manage your vehicle related business costs now.

Limit the use of company vehicles to company work

Allowing employees to use company vehicles for private jobs or to take home for the weekend is opening you up to large scale abuse. They are burning through the company's fuel and putting a lot of wear on the vehicle.

Claim all mileage allowances and vehicle related expenses

People using their private vehicle for business journeys can claim tax free expenses for that journey. Most small businesses could legally increase their tax allowance claims simply by keeping better records of their business related journeys. Log each day’s journeys and any vehicle related expenses incurred during the day. Put the information in a spreadsheet for your accountant to use at the end of the year so you don’t lose track of the real amount expended and short change yourself.

Keep your vehicles properly maintained

Poorly maintained vehicle can boost fuel consumption by up to 15%; a clogged air filter by 10%; just one 8 psi (56 kPa) under-inflated tire can reduce its life by 10,000 miles and increase fuel consumption by 4%. The type of tire used can have a dramatic effect on fuel efficiency and vehicle running costs - on-the-road trials of newly developed ‘green tires’ have resulted in major savings by companies that have invested in them. Keeping your vehicle in top operating condition saves fuel and money, keeps it reliable, preserves resale value and reduces long term maintenance costs.

Consolidate your trips

Plan errands and deliveries so that you do them together, rather than as separate trips.  Schedule deliveries in particular areas for particular days. Invest in a GPS and plan the daily run to take the shortest overall distance or most efficient route instead of zigzagging between destinations.

Look for fuel bargains

Some Chambers of Commerce offer fuel cost savings as benefits to their members and numerous supermarkets have fuel discount-for-purchase deals going with various gas stations.

Check out the range of alternative fuels available – maybe a conversion to propane is in order. Or use a low ethanol mix gasoline suitable for standard engines. Find the cheapest outlet using one of the internet sites that track fuel prices.

Lease your vehicles

There are advantages in leasing over outright purchase such as: no huge down payment; fixed, known monthly payments; getting exactly the type of vehicle you want; and even reduced maintenance and servicing costs. There may be tax benefits as well. There are, however, some potential disadvantages to leasing over purchase, the most obvious one being that the vehicle is never owned by you. The maintenance agreement can run against your interests as well, making you responsible for too many of the costs. Lease vs hire is one of those situations where you need to do the math carefully and get a number of quotes (ensure they are comparing like with like) before making the decision.

Minimize insurance coverage costs

Your commercial car insurance should be a business tax deduction and a proportion of your personal car insurance should come off your business taxes also if you are using it for business related purposes. Different companies can charge very different premiums for the same coverage – do some price comparison checking on your vehicle insurance needs.

Change vehicles

Use the most efficient vehicles for the purposes you are putting it to. Doing the bank run in the company truck is not efficient. With the government's stance on the environment, eco-friendly vehicles that improve fuel economy and reduce road tax are becoming more appealing. Lower emission vehicles are now available in all types of vehicle from small runarounds through commercial light duty up to heavyweights weighing 18,000 - 33,000 lbs gross vehicle weight.

As a business entrepreneur in a downwardly spiraling economy you need to be conscious of keeping your team feeling energetic and positive about the future of the business.  Positive emotions have been demonstrated conclusively to improve performance, reduce turnover, and boost profits.

Sweeten the pill

Holding a meeting? Start by sharing some positive client feedback, or get everyone share a recent success story in a minute or less. At the end of your session, ask everyone to acknowledge someone or something that made them more effective that week.  Sharing success stories increases team bonding and happiness.

Prevention is better than cure!

Gallup research has shown that if a person’s strengths are not in sync with his or her duties, then no amount of training to boost their weak areas will work.  Instead get with their strengths. Ask employee to take strengths assessment (such as Gallup's StrengthsFinder, or see authentichappiness.com). Take it yourself too! Now try to realign the team member’s responsibilities so the person can do what he or she does best each day. Get a copy of Now, Discover Your Strengths by M Buckingham to learn more about this (available through libraries, bookstores on online book vendors).

Criticism seems to actually reduce the ability to perform efficiently. Many workplace studies have demonstrated that workers who feel appreciated solve complicated problems faster and perform better. It is said that happy comments and encounters must outnumber negative ones 3 to 1, since bad emotions are so durable and damaging.

Select for positive attributes

Skills can always be taught and learnt.  It is far more important to hire team members with the appropriate character and emotional strengths, such as a sense of purpose, optimism, and emotional intelligence. Again look at those natural strengths identified by Gallup and select to match the employee’s tasks with their character and strengths. Those employees will more likely go beyond the call of duty and are also (by Gallup's measure) 38% more productive and may make better decisions.

Plan a business booster shot

Set aside an hour or even a half-day if you can manage it, to hold a workshop with the team and discuss the business’ larger purpose and their contributions to achieving that.  Use it to tap into the team’s ideas for systems and processes which might contribute to improvements. A number of studies have shown that identifying with the business vision meant that workers were more conscientious and more likely to contribute valuable ideas, such as ways to cut costs or raise sales.

A budget isn't a plan; it's simply a financial interpretation of a plan. If you want 2010 to be a good year, you need to be serious about planning; and you need to start now. Here's how: book an annual planning day for the entire management team - no exceptions. Hold the day offsite to avoid daily work distractions. Try to meet ahead, or better still, the night before to deal with the socializing before the planning sessions begin.

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