Business Development in Recession

Business Development in Recession

Kelly Kennedy: ​Hello, welcome to episode 79 of the business development podcast. And if you're afraid of what a recession can do to your business, stick with us. We're going to provide you tips and advice to help you come out the other side.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said business happens over years and years, value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.

And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences. And you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs. And business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business brought to you by capital business development, capitalbd.ca.

Let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 79 of the business development podcast. My gosh, 79 episodes quickly approaching 80. Very thankful. Thank you to everyone who has continued to stick with us through the Business Development Podcast, whether this is your first episode or you've been with us since the very beginning.

We appreciate you greatly. If you're looking for ways to continue to support the show, please like, follow, subscribe on your platforms of choice. Tell a friend, family member, colleague, and help us to grow this show. That is the best way to do it. It's to gain new listeners and the best way to do that Is is by telling your friends, family, colleagues about us, let the world know that the business development podcast is here for them.

Thank you so much for your continued support. I wanted to give a gigantic thank you to Dawn Mucci for episode 78. Don't go it alone. Don is. The CEO and founder of Lice Squad and superhero kids hair with care. It's an absolutely amazing, amazing episode. And it was a pleasure to have Dawn on to talk with us about franchising, which was something we had not touched on before.

And so that was really cool. Thank you, Dawn, for coming on and teaching us about what you do and what you do best. Today, I wanted to talk about a subject that we have not touched on, and it's actually really interesting and a bit of a coincidence because when I originally wrote out the show topics for the business development podcast, and for those of you who may not know this, I have a running list of show topics.

So if there is something that you would like to add to that list, if you think we've missed something, or we could elaborate better on something, please feel free, shoot me any of the topics that you would maybe like us to cover in the future, and we'll make sure that they get added to the future show list.

Cause we are going to be creating a new one. For our next 100 shows, which is coming obviously very, very soon. And yeah, if you have any ideas that you want to give us as well, please feel free to add them. You can always message me on LinkedIn, connect with me on LinkedIn, or you can always email the podcast at podcast@capitalbd.ca.

Getting back to our topic for the day a long time ago when I created the show list for this podcast, today's episode going down the list all the way up to whatever we're at 40 something was. What to do about business development in a recession and I kid you not I googled Canada and recession before I got a wrote my show topic for today to kind of see how we were doing and according to CBC CTV and Global TV Canada's economy is flirting with the recession right now.

And while we are not officially in a recession, I think it's a good time to chat about what we can do on the BD front. Because it's one of those things that I think can cause a lot of challenges for business owners, just with regards to what they do next. And I think in the event of a recession, mindset and a positive attitude really is.

Everything it really is, because without it, you can make some really, really big mistakes, and I'll talk about some of them today. But the natural response to recession, it tends to be obviously tightening the corporate belts. And while this seems logical, Too long term survival, it can have the opposite effect.

What do I mean by this? Okay, I, you know what I mean, I've worked in enough organizations, and you know what I mean, living in Alberta, we're in and out of a recession, it feels like every four or so years. So, I've been through my fair share in my 16 years in sales and business development at this point.

 And what tends to happen is we want to cut all costs that we can and you know, I mean, I've been in the room where they say, Hey, you know, stop focusing on the new BD. That's going to be hard right now and start just managing accounts. Start just making sure that our current clients are handled and they're happy and they're looked after.

And while logically. This makes a lot of sense. And yes, you should be making sure that your clients are happy, looked after, and that everything is hunky dory on that end. However, this isn't a recession thing. This is something that you should always be doing. You should always be making sure that your clients are happy and looked after.

The problem With cutting back your business development, your new business development, specifically your marketing budgets during a recession is your clients are also facing a recession. Okay. This isn't just you. And I think it's really easy to feel that way when you see your clients. Ticking along, you know, especially in oil and gas, usually it's a there's some big winners and there's some big losers.

And unfortunately, that's the way the oil and gas sector tends to work. So it's easy to look at your current clients and say, well, yeah, they're they're good. They're clipping along, they got projects going and we're going to be fine. But remember, yeah. Typically, they are also cutting their cutting their costs and looking for ways to save and that may or may not be you.

It may mean that the amount of services that you were going to sell to them this year get cut in half because now maybe the new project gets put on hold and now they don't need all that additional labor services or whatever services or products you sell. Maybe it means that they're going to go into maintenance for a little while and just wait it out.

There's a lot of people that just say, Hey, I'm just going to wait this out and see what happens. New investment tends to slow down during recessions because people get afraid, investors get afraid. And so yeah, projects get put on hold, all sorts of stuff goes up in the air. So sitting back and strictly relying on keeping your current clients happy is not a safe strategy during recession.

Okay. It's not, you have to keep the mindset that there's somebody out there that can use my services today. There's someone else and there is, there really is. What holds people back is this mindset. And I've had it. So I'm speaking to the, I'm preaching to the choir here because I've been one of those people I've been in the room saying, Oh, shit, you know, business development is pretty hard right now.

Like maybe we should just focus on accounts and do that. And, and what I did to myself in that situation was the worst thing. I basically told myself that new business development wasn't going to be possible. And this is a long time ago. This is a long time ago in the beginning of my BD career. Okay. So believe me, I've learned my lessons since then.

But what I should have been telling myself is yeah, it's going to be hard right now. So what I should do is double my efforts. What I should do is look for a new industry that can take my product and service. What I should do is think outside of the box and figure out how I can still convince these new businesses that they need our product and service.

Because the reality is when there's somebody struggling in a recession, there's somebody thriving in the recession. It's very important to remember that you are not just because you are struggling or your company or your current clients are struggling in a recession does not mean that the there's other clients that would not be struggling, that are actually having the exact opposite problem.

Look at retailers during COVID. Okay. You know, like lots of companies struggled during COVID retailers did not struggle. They struggled to keep product on their shelves, but they did not struggle. They turned record profits. So remember that there's always a winner and a loser. And sometimes when they're, when, when the economy's hot, you don't mean there are companies that are losing because the economy is hot.

When the economy is slumping, there are companies that are winning because the economy is slumping. So I want you, if you're doing BD for your company, If you are a business development representative, don't get into that mindset that we're in a recession. Oh God, the world is falling. It's not true. It's not true.

Does it mean that you might have to think outside the box or double down your business development efforts? Yes. That is potentially true, but there is somebody out there who needs your products and services. There's somebody out there who will buy it, who will pay full price, who will not renege your deal or knock you down or whittle you down to the bottom dollar because you're in recession.

There is somebody out there who needs what you sell. And sometimes it may require you to think outside of the box. What is something else that we could potentially offer that's really close to what we're offering currently that is in demand right now? What are some other industries that need what we sell that?

Is in demand right now that may still need these services. Okay. I do want you to continue to focus on keeping your current clients happy. Yes, this is critical, but remember it's critical. Always. This isn't just critical in recession, right? It's important that we're talking to our clients and figuring out how we can best serve their challenges always, but it is not specific to a recession.

Okay. So remember that absolutely look after your clients, but please, please, please, please do not stop doing new business development. Do not cut that. If you guys are tightening belts, I'm yeah. I'm, you know what I mean? I'm sure that there's lots of services and stuff that you guys can find either a better deal on or that you can find something else, but remember.

Business development is essential. Always. It's essential. Always. You always have to be filling your funnel with new opportunities because the opportunities that you have can leave at any time for any reason. And I talk about this all the time, but your clients can leave at any time for any reason.

Remember that. Remember that. Even if you have long term contracts, things can go south, and your client can leave for any time for any reason. And while it is absolutely critical that you look after your client, yes, always, always be looking for new opportunities as well. Because you have to keep that opportunity funnel full.

It always, it always... Becomes a challenge. It always becomes a challenge. And so it's critical that during a recession you don't cut your business development services. If anything, you double up on them. You find better ways to advertise. You look for the best way to get your name out there to let people know you are You're thriving, you're living, you're doing what you need to do, and you are ready and available for work to help them however you can.

You need to be open to having these conversations, you need to be open to looking for the best new opportunities you can find, and you have to double down on your business development in recession, okay? It's not the end of the world. Remember that recessions end. They always end. And what are they typically followed by?

Most of the time, they're followed by a boom. And, you know, I guess I'm talking about Alberta because Alberta is such a boom or bust cycle economy. But it doesn't usually End and then just level off. Typically, there's this like gigantic jump back to productivity or to their to sometimes never before seen levels of productivity, right?

Especially in the oil sands, especially in oil and gas. So it's really important to remember that there is an end to this and you just have to make it. And so what you need to have is new opportunities to keep you moving in the right direction. Okay, so business development, specifically new business development, is more critical than ever during recession and active marketing could be the difference between survival or collapse.

It really can be. It can be. Sorry. It really can be. You need to be making sure that you are, you are looking for new opportunity, that you're physically reaching out, you're having meetings, you're meeting with people, you're building relationships. This is how you survive. Okay. So do not just rely on current clients to keep you working.

Okay. So like I said before, Your clients are tightening their belts. They are. They're looking for, they're also looking for ways to cut costs and find things. So you don't mean you are at risk because of this. Always, they may choose to renege your current contracts. And I'm going to talk to 2015 in Alberta.

In 2015, this happened on a massive, massive scale. And it was really, really hard for the company that I was working with at that time, because we had these really great longterm agreements in place. The recession hit oil and gas companies reached out and said, Hey, you know, Mr and Mrs supplier, we need you to, we're, we're struggling.

This is, this was their pitch. They said, we're struggling at the moment. You know, obviously we work directly for the oil and gas clients. They're asking for deals. We're reaching out to all of our suppliers and we're asking them if they can cut us some deals, if they can find us some opportunity. And so the initial reach out was really small.

Give us whatever you can. That was the first pitch. Okay. So they came out and they said, give us whatever you can. So most of the companies they offered, you know, five to 10%. They said, look, yeah, I get it. Here's five to 10%. Okay. You would think that would be enough. Wouldn't you? No, that was just play one of the multiplay playbook of asking suppliers for discounts.

That worked for maybe a month. Then they reached back out again and said, Hey, we're still struggling. We need more. We would like you to knock an additional 15 to 20%. And I remember sitting in rooms having this conversation thinking, holy crap, like, at this point, they're basically asking for any bit of profit that we had baked into our, our our bids, right?

Like it was, it was really tight. And so it's like the negotiation process started, said, Hey, you know, another 15 to 20 percent above the five to 10 we just gave you is it's going to hurt us. Like we. We're going to be in some serious trouble. And they didn't care. They just said, they just said, okay, well, you know, if you, if you can't do that, then we're going to have to find a supplier who will.

And this is, this was the process. This was exactly what happened in 2015. Not only did this happen once this happened three or. Four times to the point where there was just no more wiggle room, like companies had nothing left to give them to work for them to work for them. They were buying the work. This literally happened.

I saw a large construction firms buying the work, taking work at a, at a loss. Frankly, just to keep their employees working just to keep their employees employed so that hopefully they would still have a company out the other side of this recession. This is very real. This is very real things that happen in business and fair or not fair.

It very much happens, which is why what I'm telling you is if you are strictly relying on your current clients, this could be what comes down your pipe. This could be the tube fed Reductions and rate decreases that you could be facing. If you only put all your eggs in that, in that account management basket.

Okay. This is why new business development is absolutely critical and keeping a mindset. A positive mindset is going to help you out the other side of this. It is absolutely critical. Mark my words, critical that your business development teams are keeping a positive, hopeful blue sky attitude during any recession.

If you have business development, people who are, who are coming to the meetings and what they're saying is, well, you know, it's like really hard. Like we're obviously in a really bad recession. It's impossible. There's no way that we can do this. They're right. They're absolutely right. There is no way that that business development person will do what you need them to do.

I hate to say this. If this is the attitude of your business development team in a recession, in an active recession, you need to probably replace them. And that's really harsh. And I know that I'm talking to a lot of business development people right now who are looking at me and saying, Kelly, what the hell?

Why would you, why would you throw us under the bus like that? I'm not throwing you under the bus. What I'm telling you is, if that's really what you believe, you're right. You're not going to put in the effort that you need to put in in order to come out the other end. You're just not. You know, one of the things that, that I think is probably very important during a recession is frankly that you stop listening to the news.

Stop listening to the news. Stop listening because it's all negative, right? All that crap is negative. They just talk about, oh, it's getting worse, or this happened, or something horrible happened. And it's really easy to get into this mindset that nothing good is happening. There's nothing good. There's nobody winning in this mess.

And it's, it couldn't be further from the truth. There are people winning. There are people winning in recession. And it's very important for you to keep that mind open that that could be you too. You can find your way out. There is a way forward for you and your business, recession or no recession, but you have to keep a positive attitude.

One of my favorite guests, he's also a sponsor of the show is Colin Harms from Hypervac Technologies. Colin, we appreciate you greatly. Thank you so much, but. One of the most positive humans that I have had the pleasure to interact with, and what, what Colin always says is, I live in a world of blue sky thinking.

And I absolutely love that saying, because you really need to have that. Colin is very successful, but he's also very positive. And that's what has allowed him to stay positive, is that he's always looking for the win. Where's the opportunity here? Yeah, I get it. There's a world of bad around us, always.

Right? Good times or bad. There's a world of bad around us. You have to look for the win. The win is out there. The positive outcome is out there. The company that you need to save your butt is out there, but you have to find them, which is why what I'm trying to impose in you today is that in recession, the last thing that you should be cutting is your new business development.

You need those new opportunities. You need somebody positive fighting in your corner, looking for the next big opportunity because it's. Out there, but the only way you're going to find it is if you have a positive attitude, if you're hopeful, if you're looking for the opportunity in a mess, you will find it.

If you look for the mess in a mess, you will find it. What are you going to focus on? Are you going to focus on winning and coming out the other end? Or are you going to focus on how, how slow you're going to die? And I hate to say that, but if that's the attitude is, Oh, it's a mess. There's nothing we can do about it.

Yeah. You're probably not going to make it. Your company is probably going to struggle if you come out and say, yeah, this sucks, but you know what? There's a positive thing here. Let's find it. Let's look for the opportunity. Let's find the businesses that do need what we do. If we need to do a small pivot, let's look at how we can do it.

If there's a partnership that can help us, let's look for it. You're going to find it. You're going to find all those things and you're going to find a way out. It's all in your attitude. It's all in your mindset. And it's absolutely critical that we are keeping a positive attitude and a positive mindset, right?

Because our current clients can leave at any time for any reason. And I'm not trying to scare you. Maybe they're the best clients. Maybe they've been around forever. That's great. Absolutely. I love those clients too. And you should do whatever you can to keep them. But remember that it's out of your control.

If they stay or go. It's out of your control. What is in your control is how hard am I going to work? How much effort can I put in to find another opportunity for my business? How many, how many more? Cause really, there's no lack of good opportunities, right? We have to find them. We have to find them. You can never have too many.

You can never have too many potential clients. Mark my words. You can't because you never know when you're going to need them. So you have to be. Actively looking. And yeah, what this means is your business development team needs to have a positive attitude. They need to have realistic targets. They need to know where you're directing them and they need to have a positive I can do this attitude, a blue sky thinking attitude. I think a lot of BD people have this, but it is easy in a recession to flip the other way and start to feel like, Oh my gosh, you know, I've reached out like 50 times and we're still struggling to book these meetings, or we're still struggling to get this opportunity.

Yeah. It's going to take more effort. Make them aware of that. Tell them, look, we believe in you. We believe that you can do this. Yes, we get we're asking you to put in a little more effort, and right now that's what it takes, but you can do this. Show them you believe in them. Show them that you care, and that you understand, and that you are going to stay positive, and you expect them to stay positive, too.

Lead by example, if you're a Business Owner, CEO, President, I'm talking to you today and you're, you're a little bit afraid or you're struggling in recession. Remember, you have to stay positive. You have to look for a positive outcome. You need to pump your team up. You need to show them there's hope. You need to lead by example.

Show them that there's a light at the end of this tunnel and you intend to take the company there. And you intend to take each and every one of them with you and try to keep the positivity up in your office because negativity in an office kills a company. It kills a company. If everybody feels like they can't do it or they're afraid for their jobs, yeah, you're gonna struggle.

You're gonna struggle because it's pretty hard to keep people motivated and working hard if they're terrified. You can't do that. You have to lead by example. And so, blue sky thinking, okay? Be positive. Have something positive to say at the weekly meetings. Encourage your business development team. Show them that you believe in them.

That they can come out the other end and you will come out the other end. So what can we do? What else can we do? Do increase your active business development efforts. We talked about this. Don't cut these. Don't ask for less. Ask for more. Have more. Do more. Find new opportunity. Make that an absolute priority for your company.

Do you invest in active and passive marketing strategy? So we talk about this all the time. What do I mean by active and passive marketing? Active marketing means somebody physically making contact with clients. It's somebody either making physical brochure drops, making digital introductions, but then turning that into a physical phone call, a direct email where we are actually getting in touch with people and then asking for a meeting.

All of the work we do in business development is to get us to that meeting stage, right? So we need to make sure that in recession, we are pushing hard for those meetings. We need to get in person. We need to build relationships. This is done through active marketing. So 80 percent active marketing. Okay.

Passive marketing. Yes. Still critical. 20%. I want 20 percent of your ad dollars going to your passive marketing. That's your social media strategies. That's any digital advertising you might be doing through like Facebook or LinkedIn or wherever else you do digital advertising. That's radio. That's TV.

That's any way that you are doing a passive marketing strategy where customers are going to have to reach out directly to you through information that they found on the web. Do you understand? In this particular case, I am talking business to business. Okay. In business to customer, this is flipped probably 20 percent active marketing to 80 percent passive marketing, but it's a different customer.

Who I'm talking to most of the time with this show is business to business relationships, companies selling to other companies. Okay. 80, 20, 80 percent active, 20 percent passive. This is going to be a winning strategy for you. Okay. So do double down on solidifying relationships. Okay. So this is absolutely critical.

This is where, what I was talking about before. Yes. Look after your current clients, take them out, show them. You care about them, show them that you get it. They're struggling too. And you're there to help. You're going to support them. You're going to find a way forward with them where you both win. You care about this relationship.

You care about this client, show them, show them, make time. Book face to face interactions with your clients, heck, take them out if you can. Find ways to solidify that relationship. Do this with new relationships too. Remember, that's what we're trying to do. Get new meetings, take them out for lunch, make a real human to human relationship, okay?

These are only going to benefit you down the line. You know, the reality is new business relationships take time. New clients take time. It usually takes multiple interactions. I think the statistic is six. It takes six interactions before a customer typically even tries your service. Okay. Yeah, it's going to take some time.

Okay. This is why I'm saying that the doubling down on new business development is critical because even your BD reps, as they're making those initial relationships, it's going to take multiple interactions before they're ready to buy from you anyway. So you best be doubling down on these new opportunities to give you and your company and your BD reps the best opportunity possible.

To close this deal for you. Okay. It's going to take time, but remember, human relationships are absolutely key. Do not rely on your passive strategy to send customers to your door. This is just not going to work. It's not going to work. It is inefficient. It is ineffective on its own. It needs, it needs probably 80 percent at least of an active marketing strategy to be successful.

Okay. I'm never advocating against passive marketing. I do it. Every company I work with does it, but I do it limitedly. I do it on a very small amount of my advertising budget. Cause while it is critical, it typically does not send customers to your door. What it does is it creates brand awareness and brand awareness is absolutely critical as well.

And it's a long term strategy, which is why you should consistently invest probably about 20 percent of your passive strategy to make sure that you do have a presence, you know, in front of your clients, whether that be on TV, radio, LinkedIn, Meta, wherever else you're advertising, right? It does matter, but remember, what matters much more is physical interaction that leads to meetings, which leads to personal relationships, which frankly leads to more business over time, which is what you need to be doubling down on right now.

Alright, so We need to make sure that our employees are looked after and are motivated. Okay. This is equally important. You don't have a business without your employees. Don't scare the bejesus out of them. Okay. This is where, like I said before, stay positive. Show them that you care, show them that you believe in the company.

You believe that you're going to come out the other end of this. You're going to find solutions and you care about them and you care about their jobs and that you are going to do everything possible to keep them employed and keep them looked after and keep them happy. Okay? It's very important that our employees feel cared about, respected, valued.

Okay? This is ever so critical in recession because they're already afraid. Your employees are already afraid. They know. They know it's hard out there. They know, believe me, okay? They're well aware. They don't need you to tell them. What they need you to do is lead them. They need you to encourage them, to motivate them, to show them that you aren't giving up.

Not without a fight. You're gonna work real hard and you're gonna find a way. To turn this company around, you're going to find a way to come out the other end of this recession. Okay. You can do this. You can lead them, but you have to lead yourself first. And my president, CEOs, Founders lead yourself first.

You need to find ways to stay positive. You need to find ways to look forward. This might be, this might be dealing with your own mental health. This might be, you know what I mean? Don't worry. I totally get it. I've had the sleepless nights too. Remember though we deal with that, have a support group that you can talk to about that, but don't make that your employees.

Don't make that, you know, the VPs of your company. K have that conversation with some close friends, some family, some people you trust who are maybe outside the organization where you can say, you know what? Like, Oh yeah, I'm shit scared right now, but I need to keep a positive spin on this or I need to keep a positive attitude so that I can motivate my team to do well so that we have a good chance of coming out with this thing.

Looking after your own mental health as a Founder, CEO, President, absolutely critical during recession. Find some outlets, find some ways to stay positive. Find some ways to find hope. And, you know, maybe that's counseling, maybe that's, like I said, you know, dealing with dealing with a mentor or some trusted, some trusted people in your circle.

Remember, there is a positive way out of this, and you have a big team of people who care. You have a big team of employees who care about the success of your business, and they are just as motivated to come out the other end as you are. Use them. Allow them to bring their ideas to you. Allow them to show you what the best way they think is forward.

Or is there, is there a partnership that could be beneficial to you? Or is there another industry that with a few minor tweaks we could serve instead? Because remember, just because the industry you are currently serving is, is struggling, that doesn't mean that there isn't an industry out there you could serve that isn't struggling, that maybe is, is thriving in this new environment.

We have to look for the opportunities, and sometimes it's hard to see it from where we sit. Believe me, you know, I mean, I talked about this a couple episodes ago where we had a big restructuring of, of, of, of our, of our business model, frankly, at Capital, and I couldn't see it. It took multiple conversations with, you know past clients, people we'd send proposals to my inner circle of, of friends and family to say like, where am I going wrong?

And, and when it kind of came to light where we were struggling or how we could do this better, it was like, duh, how did I not see that? But I couldn't see it from my myopic standpoint. I couldn't see it from where I was sitting. It took, it took feedback from a whole group of people to show me, okay, yeah, I am missing something here.

And likely you are too. Okay. I'm sorry. Likely you are too. None of us are perfect. None of us see everything or know everything. The reality is we're all learning. We're all on this learning journey together and you can find the way out. Just be, be open to ideas. Be open to listening to people. Understand that your viewpoint is just one viewpoint.

There's lots of other viewpoints. There's lots of other feedback that could help you that could turn these things around for you. Don't get locked into I'm doing it right. This is the only way to do it. There's always another way. There's always another way. Be open to it. Okay. All right. So remember to ask clients how you can better serve them.

Be a partner. Be a partner with your client. Okay. This is one of those other things that I was talking about where it's like feedback, feedback. Who's the best people to give you feedback on how you can do better? Who is? It's your clients. It's the people you're already working with. You can say, Hey, we offer this service to you.

What do you think? Is there better ways that we could be offering this to you? Is there a better value that maybe we could provide to you? You know, talk to me, how do we better serve you? How do we help you in this challenging situation? Because we want to find a way. And that way is not always lowering your price.

Okay. Sometimes you can find ways to add more value to keep your price where it's at. But also make your client happy. Cause now they're feeling like, Hey, you know what? Yeah. They're keeping their price where it's at, but look at what they're giving me. Look at all these extra services we're getting. Now, look at this like extra product that we're now being able to being able to take on because, because you know this, this this This company cares about us.

Okay. So find ways to partner with your clients. They want that. They want that mutually beneficial relationships. Okay. Mutually beneficial relationships are what we are trying to, to create with all of our clients in a recession or not be a partner. Be a friend, find a way to serve them in a way that is mutually beneficial to both.

Okay. And obviously, you know, we talked about this quite a bit. Do find any unnecessary costs, right? Understand your business development is critical, but there may be other ways that you can cut costs. So look, look inside your business, you know, like God, we're all paying for God knows how many subscriptions.

My gosh, I can barely keep track of all of our subscriptions and capital and, and the podcast here. I'm sure your company is the same. I'm sure you're paying for subscriptions right now. You don't even use, or you don't even need. Look at the various ways that you can save costs, right? Find all of the various ways.

But remember, business development is typically not the one you want to cut. You need to be doubling down on that. You need to be making sure, Hey, you know, we're making twice the effort. Maybe we were in the good times. We're finding the best ways possible. If we had to talk to 20 people a week before, now we're going to talk to 40, right?

Find the way forward. But, but remember double down on your new business development. Don't take it away. If you take it away, you are setting yourself up for failure in the longterm. You need those new leads. You need new opportunities. Okay. So remember, we need to keep a positive mindset and we need to limit our focus on the news.

Negativity will only hurt your ability to make smart moves for your business. This is true, right? Negativity just puts you in a place where you can't make good decisions. You really can't. You really can't. If you're, if you're shit scared, you are not in a place to be able to make smart business decisions.

Okay. Remember do look after your mental health recessions always end and they can be followed by economic booms. Stay positive. Be a blue sky thinker and you will prevail. Just a quick heads up. If you guys love this episode, I have an absolutely amazing entrepreneurial interview coming up. This Sunday, episode 80, we have Rviita Energy Tea.

We're interviewing the CEO, Mitch Jacobsen. It's an absolutely amazing show. The Rviita story is absolutely amazing. You're going to love it. Come check us out this Sunday. Shout outs this week, David Fair, Dawn Mucci. Aaron Haberman, Tash Jefferies, Amin Samji, and Shelby Sullivan. Thank you so much for your support of the business development podcast.

And always remember if there's ways that we can support you, remember, I also own a business called Capital Business Development. We do new business development. That's really what we focus on. And we offer complete packages. We offer coaching sessions for your team. We can go over processes and help to evaluate where you guys can improve.

Feel free to reach out. podcast@capitalbd.ca, or you can always connect with me on LinkedIn, or you can check out our website @ www.capitalbd.ca. Thank you so much for tuning in with us. This has been episode 79 of the Business Development Podcast, and we will catch you on. The flip side.

Outro: This has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization. Is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.