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Given the past year’s pandemic and economic chaos it’s relatively safe to call the present a “hostile economic environment”.

Small businesses are struggling across the board as imports are hard to come by, exports near impossible to make, and clients are stripped of their expendable income. In these circumstances it’s wise for the small business owner to do everything they can to not only survive in these harsh conditions, but to keep staff on board, and position themselves for better times. This is a list of three easy things every small business should be doing to maximise profit in 2021.

“If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today” (Thích Nhất Hạnh)

According to a press release issued this year by the World Bank, the pandemic has taken “a heavy toll of deaths and illness, plunged millions into poverty, and may depress economic activity and incomes for a prolonged period”.

World Bank Group President, David Malpass, explained that while the collapse in global economic activity in 2020 due to the onset of the pandemic, is estimated to have been slightly less severe than previously projected in advanced economies overall, for most emerging market and developing economies, the impact was more acute than expected.

“Financial fragilities in many of these countries, as the growth shock impacts vulnerable household and business balance sheets, will also need to be addressed”, added Vice President and World Bank Group Chief Economist, Carmen Reinhart.

It is under these circumstances that businesses are battling to keep their heads above water. Here are four simple things you can do to help your business survive in 2021.

1) Delve into your budget

Now more than ever the small business owner needs to understand their company and the way that company spends money. A budget is a roadmap for small businesses, and in the day-to-day running of a start-up or small enterprise it can often be neglected in favour of making payments if and when they seem necessary.

If you don’t have a budget, make one, and if you have one, take a fresh look at it. Understand what the costs are and where the money is coming from. Know what expenses are coming up down the line – are there licences or new machines you need to own or lease? Do the staff expect a bonus at a specific time of year? Do you need extra at year end for a marketing campaign? Where and how you spend money will show you what’s important to your business and where the fat can be cut. Trimming small amounts from dead areas and focusing that money on the places that deliver returns can make a dramatic difference to the bottom line.

Riley Panko, in a report on budgeting, said, “Businesses of all sizes should create a budget if they don’t want to risk the financial health of their organisation…Businesses may create more challenges for themselves by skipping a budget. This is because budgeting helps small businesses focus.”

Knowing what your long and short terms needs are will help you plan, and streamline your business, which in turn will help you survive 2021.

2) Focus on your core customers, and ditch your “barnacle clients”

In good times it is a good idea to expand your outlook and try to capture new markets for your products. You have the time to focus on those “barnacle clients” who eat up your time and don’t necessarily deliver the same return for time invested. But in tough times, it’s wise to return to key principles and focus on those clients and markets you know work.

Barnacle clients are, according to Joe Woodward, those clients who, “Whine about fees; complain about work quality even when you know it was well done; don’t supply needed information on a timely basis; and aren’t teachable”. Woodward suggests those clients should be jettisoned from a business as they only serve to drag a business down in choppy waters when the company needs to be running as sleekly and efficiently as possible.

“Those kinds of clients should be fired,” he says. “It’s a scary thing, but I have never had anything but a net gain from firing a client.”

At the same time the business owner needs to put the energy that was going into barnacle clients into those who offer returns. Go back to the best clients that you haven’t spoken to in a while, touch base with friends, networks and contacts who you know could benefit from your business, and, in this way, reinvigorate your client base.

Advertising too should start to focus on your core client demographic. Don’t know what that is? Then it’s time to start going through the data. Start with internal data on past customers, and focus on creating a customer profile. This includes basic demographic information, but also try to map your customer on a deeper level. What are their values? What are their spending attitudes? What makes them excited and what makes them tick?

All of this will give you a comprehensive picture of what your core customer demographic looks like. While you may want to market as widely as possible to capture as many customers as possible, this focused kind of marketing will be much more effective, especially for small businesses.

3) Advertise concisely

Repeated studies are finding that people are increasingly jaded, easily distracted and unwilling to engage with advertising – particularly on social media, an important area for the small business. This does not, however, mean that you should stop advertising. On the contrary, social media is still one of the most important tools that a modern business owner can utilise with 52% of new brand discovery happening on public social media feeds. The trick is to be clear, and concise.

According to stats from Instagram, 60% of users report that they have discovered a product on another person’s profile, but this never happens with overly long posts or wordy descriptions. Gone are the days when people would watch a full YouTube advert. If your brand message isn’t in place before the skip button can be pushed, you should consider the money wasted. And the rules of social media should be applied across the board to all other types of marketing be they newsletters, emails or even phone calls.

Luke Lintz from social media agency Highkey suggests business advertising should:

• Lead with the product or service,

• Make the offer personal to the customer,

• Use only a few key statistics to support the claim

• Emphasise return on investment

• Stay away from “used car” sales language like “Don’t miss out”.

“The key is personalised honest communication that doesn’t eat up the client’s time,” he explains. Repeated studies also show that getting staff to personally reach out to potential clients works much better than generic adverts.