Keeping up company morale I think is one of the hardest but most effective areas of team development. Employee attitudes trickle down into current projects and the treatment of your customers. And continuing to treat your customers well will enhance your reputation even more. Even if they don’t have the money to spend right now, they’ll remember you and come back later on.

Also highly important is being selective with your projects. Taking on any ol’ project that comes your way typically results in revenue losses if you don’t see eye to eye, which is worse than fewer projects to work on.

Some other things that I have found to help in the past are seeking out pro-bono non-profit projects or consulting work to keep the team fresh with new ideas and busy. This has resulted in training opportunities for our team to learn new skills, keep busy so they don’t become worried (worry is the management team’s job), and build up your portfolio to leverage with paying customers. And if you do a great job with a non-profit, you often receive free advertising.

Also, because everyone else tends to slash their advertising budgets in tough times, we always started advertising or increased our advertising on a targeted level. You can often negotiate new pricing to fill space and sometimes you’ll be the only relevant company listed, therefore winning new business for those looking to fill a need or spend money.

Best of luck in the New Year!

Andrea