Like you, I don’t have a crystal ball that tells me exactly what the year ahead is going to look like. I rely on people smarter than myself to identify trends and forecasts that foreshadow, and then I tie that information together to formulate a strategy.

We all know we want to grow our businesses. But what is growth? Growth is different for every business and every year. Sometimes growth is adding locations. Sometimes it’s achieving a certain revenue. Some experts will tell us that at times, growth is just maintaining, as in, “Can you be resilient during hard times and maintain to continue growing in the future?”

Once you’ve defined what growth is, it’s time to ask, “What are the experts saying?” One expert I admire is Brian Beaulieu, the CEO and Chief Economist at ITR Economics. He’s a great one to watch speak because the first thing he does with his audiences is score his own accuracy. He reflects back on where ITR was accurate in their economic predictions and discusses where they missed the mark in previous years. (ITR is quite accurate.) When I saw Brian speak this year, he discussed his predictions for 2024. He stated that 2023 ended up being slower, customer-wise, than we had all expected, but pointed out that customers are still buying. He predicted that this trend would continue as we move through 2024.

So, if customers are still buying, what do customers want? At a recent Google Trades Summit, case study data showed while leads were down, customer purchases were up. Findings show that particularly in the trades, consumers are still shopping for home improvements and necessary updates. The big opportunity was simply getting customers to buy from you. Camp Digital — a digital marketing agency for home service companies — says that the three main drivers for a customer to buy are:

• Be the best value
• Be the company they can trust
• Be the company with the good reputation

How can we get customers to buy from you? We listen to experts again! Bestselling author and entrepreneur Alex Hormozi has a podcast called Business Made Simple. In episode 108, he predicts that companies with good processes will not struggle in 2024. According to Alex, the companies that need to worry are the companies that don’t have good processes.

We all know that process is everything, and our businesses slip when our processes slip. If we want to shore up our companies against recession, the path forward is simple:

1. Believe your business is necessary. Plumbing, electrical, heating, and cooling services are needed by customers. The majority of homeowners will not do without heat in the winter, cooling in the summer, electricity, and plumbing services.
2. Know the gaps. Look at others that sell the same thing you do. What do they do well? What do they do poorly? What do consumers want and need as we all move into uncertain times?
3. Be better than the competition.Everyone wants a silver bullet when it comes to selling in tough times, but the reality is that there is no silver bullet. There are only the golden BBs of your processes and value. To sell in tough times, you simply need to be better than your competition. Customers will always buy from home service companies. The only variables are whether they’re going to buy now and whether they’re going to buy from you.

This path to success seems straightforward, so where do companies go wrong?

The most common mistake I see companies make in uncertain times is to eliminate or hold off on training, coaching, and consulting. Uncertain times are exactly when you should be going all-in in these areas! If customer leads are limited, it’s a great time to make sure your sales team is delivering the best value.

If you don’t believe me, do the math. Let’s say you have a salesperson who is taking two calls per day and closing at 50%, with an average sale of $12,000. Then, because of training, they increase their performance by just 1% — they get 1% more effective. That 1% would equal $115,000 in additional revenue over the next year.

Now, I don’t know any training or coaching that costs $115,000 per year. I also don’t know any legitimate trainer or coach that would only net you a 1% increase in performance, if you implement the golden BBs they help you find.

Tough times mean we just have to be better. Price is only an issue in the absence of value — even in tough times.