Almost any business owner will instantly tell you get "more business", period! But, this is not the total answer. Indeed, getting "more business" is very important and also very fundamental to earning a living, especially since some customers are defecting and need to be replaced. Hence, "more business" is required to sustain the owner's take-home income. But, it is very challenging in today's economic downturn to get "more business". In both cases, customers and owners don't want to spend any money. In addition, many business owners are still motivated to make the same profit or even more. This mindset can often be an inhibitor. It may not be entirely possible to proceed as if everything is normal when times are tough and it may hurt customer relationships. Paying the daily bills to stay in business and keeping customers becomes the number one priority. The goal is to keep the business going while maintaining excellent relationships with good customers and of course going after "more business". How do you do this? This is much easier said than actually accomplished in reality.

You should start thinking on a new approach that will implement a strategy to get "more business". To do this, you need to cultivate a different mindset that is not simply black or white or yesterday's way of thinking. You need to stop thinking that you only sell products off-the-shelf or standard priced services. Your new way of thinking should include flexible offerings. In a nutshell, you provide what the customer wants at a given point in time by customizing your offerings to fit.

In this current economy, the small business owner must focus on survival first and adjust his thinking to a strategy of developing solutions that will result in improving cash flow to keep their business functioning with the lights on. The mindset of today should be to deliver value that fits a specific customer's need at the lowest price possible to reap as much money above cost as possible. It sounds like a contradiction, selling the lowest priced offerings to capture the most money possible. This is the approach to be discussed as an honest endeavor to solve the customer's problem using different solutions, which previously you and the customer may be unaware of their existence or value.

An approach of getting half a loaf of bread  is sometimes better than no bread at all and getting customers to come back and buy again. This approach is a long term strategy to keep a customer for a lifetime by understanding one size doesn't fit all. Price is the key factor of initially motivating customers to purchase your service or products in today's marketplace. The purchasing decision is based on whether the value provided is worth the price. Remember most customers are afraid to spend money in this economy and they may be willing to settle on something that is not the best. What does this mean to you? In practical everyday business language it means working-a-deal with customers to deliver the precise amount of value that will satisfy customers at the right price. This approach is called "customize the offering" to fit the deal. The variables here are both the content of the offering and price. You are customizing the offering to fit what the customer needs for a given price at a given time. To figure out what is in the offering, you need to understand your customers and listen very carefully to what they are really asking for. Use the voice-of-the customer (customer feedback), to determine viable alternative ways to solve their problems. Then, create your offerings and deals as a result of these alternative solutions to make it easy to do business with you.

To Summarize: Small business owners must be able to deliver a variety of offerings that can be customized to individual tastes and customer choices. In this way, you can capture as much revenue as possible by maximizing the number of customers that are willing to purchase from your business.