Innovation or Extinction?

Adapting your small business or nonprofit during the recession may be difficult – even painful – but it must be done or you risk joining the dinosaur in extinction.

At this point, you’ve most likely gotten past being frozen by the depth and breadth of the recession. You’ve cut your budgets and staff to the bone and are lean and mean. If you weren’t aggressive about your business before, you are now. You have been in survival mode and congratulations…you made it.

Now it’s time to move forward and see the possibilities. You need to start innovating new and improved products and services, because they take time to develop. If you don’t do it now, you won’t be ready when the downturn turns up again.

I know what you’re thinking, “I just don’t have the energy,” or “I’m busy just trying to stay alive,” but you’ve got to get some gumption and get moving.

Trust me, your competition isn’t standing still. Dinosaurs were not smart enough to adapt and plan ahead. But you are.

How are you preparing for the New Age, when the sun comes out, the ice caps thaw and customers, or donors in the case of nonprofits, renew their spending?

Geri Stengel is President of Stengel Solutions, a strategic planning and marketing firm that advises and develops social impact organizations. She teaches Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise at The New School in New York City.