How to Revive your Struggling Business Fast: The 9 Strategies to Move from Loss to Profit

At a time where economies are downsizing and entrepreneurs are counting their losses in millions, you need practical strategies to revive your struggling business or you can pack up completely but; getting a hang of practical ideas that work can be very difficult for beginners who are barely able to keep their heads afloat.

A lot of struggling entrepreneurs have tried to figure their way out of a failing business but a good number of them only ended up falling way in deeper in losses, because they used the wrong strategy. I was once one of these people and I know exactly how it hurts, watching your business die a slow and painful death until there’s nothing left.

As someone who’s been in that shoe, I know how scary it can be when you have to watch your investments, effort and resources washed down the drain because it is nearly impossible to find a viable solution that can actually deliver the turnaround you want so bad.

So, having been able to find a way to turn around our business and get back to profit, and having worked with a number of other businesses over the years, I’ll be sharing with you in this guide, some of the key lessons we’ve learned and how you can use these lessons to revive a failing business from scratch.

Evaluate your Business

One of the first steps to revive your struggling business is to evaluate the business. Without this, it is nearly impossible to know what’s wrong with your business or identify clearly, the strategies that can get you to reposition the business.

First of all, as a small business owner, it is very important for you to realize that some of your actions or inactions could be potentially responsible, partly or wholly, directly or indirectly, for the result you have with your business today.

With that said, to change your outcome and revive your dying business, you must figure out exactly, what got you to this point and why you got here. This is what will decide when and how you’re going to get out of where you are right now.

Now, to get started, dig in with a personal evaluation of your business activities, all the things you’re supposed to do in the normal cause of business. Find out the things you were able to do, how you did them. Did you deliver an excellent or poor outcome?

Additionally, find out; the things you should have done (which you ended up not doing), how would they have impacted your business if you were able to do them? Set realistic expectations based off your track records.

Now, here’s what you want to do; get out two plain papers or a open up two different pages on your device to make a list. On the first list, write down everything you’re supposed to do as a normal part of your business routine which you’re actually doing.

For the second list, write down the other things you’re supposed to do which you have not been able to do either for one reason or the other. Write out everything in details for both lists.

Go through the first list of what you’re already doing and ask yourself, am I doing these things exactly the way as it is supposed to be done?

If you’re a content creator for example, for the first list; this is where you’ll ask yourself questions like; am I consistent with my content creation and sharing? Am I creating the right kind of content or am I posting my content at the right time?

Furthermore ask yourself; If at all I am creating enough content, am I promoting my content as much as I should? Am I sharing it on social media platform and other platforms, am I sharing it to the right target audience?

For the second list, find out if you were to have done the things listed above in the first list, how would it possibly have impacted your business? List out your answers. This should also include the things you’re meant to do generally in the course of your business, which you have not been able to do.

Answering these questions sincerely, will help you to analyze what went wrong, why, how and the answers you get from here will shape the solutions you’ll evolve as you navigate deeper with the other steps.

Re-assess your Target Market

Are you really targeting the right market? Is there really as much need for your product or services in this particular market or niche presently, as it was when you first started?

This is the next set of questions to answer as you get set to revive your struggling business.

One thing I got to realize over the years is that one of the major reasons a lot of small businesses fail is not merely because they don’t have a good product or a clear idea about the market…

Most small businesses fail because they are trying to sell the wrong product to the wrong market.

While working on plans to revive a failing business, one of the factors you have to consider is your audience – Are they really interested in the product or services you’re offering? If yes, what’s the best price that can work for them?

Also, be able to differentiate between having a product in the market and having the right product at the right price, in the right market and even at the right time.

Another reason some businesses fail is because they have failed to realize that over the years, people’s interest or buying capacity in their product or services dwindled over time. This is what is happening especially in businesses built around fast changing sectors like the technology industry.

Most times, this loss of interest may not even be due to the buyer’s fault but external economic factors, people’s tastes and preferences, buying capacity or the evolution of better alternatives. You want to find out which of this is causing your dwindling sales.

When people’s interest in your product or services reduces, you have to get on a market survey to figure out the cause of it, (using the measures listed above) before you can proffer the next step forward.

Furthermore, a regular re-assessment of your industry will guide to identify key areas to make improvement, make different offerings, positioning or change your product offerings entirely.

Analyze your Market Demand

It’s possible you got into this business some months or years back. And over the period, a lot of changes might have taken place, sometimes, without your knowledge.

At this stage, to revive your struggling business and get back on your feet, find out, how’s the market positioned today as compared to when you started your business?

Is the market still in need of your product and services exactly the way it is or are there some changes in demand which you’ll need to evolve to appeal to your customers?

Answering these questions correctly, using real data can give you a better perspective on what’s happening around your business.

Today, a lot of small businesses owners are trying to revive a dead horse. They struggle hard to breathe life into products and services that are no longer having as much demand as they used to.

Most times this will only end up as effort in futility like we found out the hard way with one of our key products. The worse part of it is that you might not even notice it. That’s why, to revive a dying business, you must do a market research to find out what’s working with your target audience and what’s not.

In addition to that, Identify the current taste and preferences of your market, compare the demand and supply pull for your product or services and then use this to draw conclusions on the way forward.

PS: To achieve this, you can also do a direct market research by asking questions via questionnaires, have a look at what your competitors are doing or study the trends. Afterwards, you will be better informed on what to do, based on the data you generate.

Review your Brand Performance

One of the causes of small business failure you’ll hardly ever suspect could be your brand performance. Sometimes your business could be struggling either because you have stopped delivering on your promise as a brand or the brand itself has lost its appeal or it is not best fit for the target audience anymore.

But, you’ll never know until you have a quick review of your brand. So, reviewing your brand is one of the effective strategies you can use to revive your struggling business.

To get started, find out; as a brand, are you still serving your target audience the way you’re supposed, the way you used to when you were making more profit or are there things you can do to make it better?

A number of struggling businesses have gained improved growth after they made some changes to their brand positioning.

Perhaps this could be one of the biggest shot you’ll take to revive your struggling business but you’ll never know until you take a step to review your brand performance.

Create a Specific Goal

Now that you’ve been able to evaluate what happened to your business, the next step to revive your struggling business is to find out the way forward.

So, at this point you’ll want to ask the question, “where do we go from here”?

And to answer this question correctly, you have to clearly identify the things you want to achieve going forward. But you cannot do this without having a set goal.

That is why at this stage, you have to set out a realistic goal that can be achieved within a set time frame. Remember, this is not the time to write down numerous goals. Pick out the most important milestones for you and have them written down.

Pay attention. Focus on picking out a few things you can achieve within a specific period that can actually get your business back on its feet. Give yourself a time frame you want to achieve this. And then write down these things.

Design a Strategic Plan

What steps can you take to achieve the things you listed down as your goals?

Now, according to research, one of the major reasons why small businesses fail is because some small businesses do not have a realistic business plan.

After creating your goal, the next step to revive a struggling business is to design a new business strategy that can work for you, based on your own reality.

Considering that during your evaluation at step one, you were able to figure out the reason why the other strategy failed..

What you want to do right now is to get a new strategy different from the other one that failed. Or put differently, a strategy that is mapped out based off the lessons you learned from the other plan and your performance review outcomes.

It doesn’t matter that you don’t know it all. What you want to do is to come up with a research backed step-by-step strategy that will get you to realistically achieve your new goals as set out above.

Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be elaborate. Keep it simple and realistic. While at it, you may want to have a look at what your competitors are doing to know what’s working in the industry.

It doesn’t mean you have to copy their own strategy. But if it’s working for them, you can always take some few things and adapt them to fit in with your strategy.

Remember, your business plan shouldn’t be cut in stone. Sometimes, you will have to keep testing and changing strategies until you find out what really works for you.

Implement your Strategy

No matter how good it is, your business plan is nothing but a plan on paper (or your device). Implementation is the only way you can bring it to life. It is also the only way you can get to actually revive your struggling business.

So, now that you know what happened to your business and you’re also set to bring it back to live with a new strategy, it’s time to get to implement your plans.

Get right in on it, one step at a time. Do the actual work. Create the exact quality and number of weekly content listed out in your business plan, share at the allocated time, promote as massively as you have listed out. Network and do all the under listed outreaches you have set out in your plan.

Do not be in a hurry but take out time to observe your outcomes, as you go about implementing each of your plans.

As much as possible, try to utilize all available avenues to implement your strategies. If it’s marketing, do not just stop on one particular platform, get on as many platforms as possible and then take note of your outcomes.

Collaborate or Co-create

Sometimes, collaboration could be all you need to revive a struggling business.

Although in some cases, a lot of small business owners always refuse to accept this option sometimes out of shame and some other reasons. I get that a lot.

But, there’s nothing shameful about pulling resources together with another business if that’s all it will take to save your business from dying.

You could consider doing this as mergers or simply collaborating to deliver some specific services, projects, sell products or combine effort in mutually beneficial ways.

In most cases, collaborating or co-creating solutions with other businesses, does not have to be a permanent strategy or even lead to merger of brands. It could be a one off project for a specific reason or a strategic approach that will benefit both participating brands.

Where collaborating with other business is your best shot to revive your struggling business, be sure you take this step after factoring in the pros and the cons and going for it only when the pros outweighs the cons.

Measure your Outcomes

As you’d probably know, one other major reason lots of online businesses fail is because they fail to measure their outcomes. We’ve been here before.

And when you don’t measure your outcome, you don’t know if there’s any improvement or not.

You know measuring your outcomes is more like taking steps to account for your work and how much the effort and resources are yielding in terms of returns. And this is very important.

I know a lot of small businesses do not bother to take this level of accountability. But, as some one focused on reviving your struggling business, you must take steps to review your outcomes at intervals. Find out what you achieved and whether you reached your goals.

This will get you to understand if the steps you’ve taken so far has been able to deliver any result or not.

Again, let’s say you’re a content creator for instance; to measure your performance, on a monthly basis, you’ll have to review your content strategy, posting platform and overall performance, based on your goals.

Find out, did your strategy deliver on the expected outcome? If yes, are there areas you could improve on to get better results?

Where you realize there’s no improvement then you’ll know it’s time to re-strategize and try something different altogether.

In a nutshell, whatever be the case; measuring your outcomes will equip you with ideas on what happened to your business or what did not happen and what you can do to change the course of your business going forward.

Diversify or Re-focus

As a bonus, another key strategy to revive a dying business is to diversify or refocus the business entirely.

Based on your findings, if your key product or services is becoming less relevant in the market, you can consider diversifying to other relevant services or areas where the demand is high, without changing the nature of your business.

In other instances where you’re providing diverse products or services and your demand dwindles, you can decide to re-focus and pull up resources into the best performing business or product at the time.

Whether you’re refocusing or diversifying, the idea is not to change the nature of your business but to keep you going while the business eventually turns around naturally.

Final Words

It’s very possible to revive a struggling business and get back on your feet and thrive after a resounding slut in growth.

A lot of businesses have been there. Done that. And you can actually do the same, if you take steps to put in the work, using the right strategies.

Right now in this guide, you have all the right strategies you need to revive your dying business.

But the question is, are you ready to use these strategies and get your business back on its feet? Are you ready to walk the talk and get your business to become the next successful online business you’ve been dreaming about? The choice is yours!

Remember, if you find it difficult to get started on the right footing, we can hold you by the hand and work with you to create strategies that deliver. So, let’s get started here.

Now, it’s over to you! Have you ever had to deal with a struggling business? If yes, what was the outcome? Drop your comments below.