Note: Part 3 of “she’s right again” will be next post…

I’ve been following the New York Times’ video series on Small Business Weathers the Recession.

This fascinating video series examines real life businesses in NYC who are doing everything they can think of to survive during our economic recession.

I’m a business owner, and I work with growing businesses as well as large corporations via my training and consulting work, based on the core ideas in my book, Value Prop. I think it’s wonderful that the New York Times is covering real life, real businesses.

As I watch these videos, one question for these business owners comes to mind:

“Where’s the creativity in the substance of what you are offering … in your actual Value Proposition?”

In the deli business that is profiled, Menna’s Meats, the owner has really taken a beating and is naturally responding operationally. I feel his pain – and wish him well. He’s cut back hours, and brought in his wife to work there. The challenge he faces is that it seems he’s reacting – but not asking himself,

• How can I be a different kind of deli?
• How can I revisit my assumptions about what I can do for people?
• Are we just in a “box” about what a deli is and that’s that?

So far in this series, Wayne Sosin with Worksman Cycles has had the most forward-looking perspective response: He’s actively considering new markets.

When your current market dries up, yes, you do you have to make the operational decisions to survive and stretch cash as long as possible. And yes, you also want to preserve the training you’ve invested in your workers. You can scale back hours and so on – however these are survival tactics. This may keep you in business, but why not ask the (I know, “crazy”) question, “can we grow?“. What Wayne said was that his company was exploring other opportunities with other possible customers (mostly manufacturers) ; for example, where the market was using powered vehicles he could substitute his (much lower cost) human-powered vehicles.

I think that the message here is to look for the innovation opportunity in your value chain- not only look at the operational things you have to do and the internal organizational innovation you have to do for survival … but also take some time out of your day to get out of the “office.” Maybe take a walk around the park, and think to yourself as you observe what’s going on around you,

• What else can we do for our current customers?
• Who else can we help with what we already do?
• What other markets (traditional or nontraditional) can we be of value to?
• Who can we partner with to bring added value to both businesses’ products and services?

In the case of Georgette Blau, of the ScreenTours bus tour company, a good question their leaders could ask themselves is, “What else can we do in terms of working in partnerships?”

Maybe working with a popular movie production staff, theatre or playhouse. So for example, you buy a ticket to a movie or a play or a show, and you get a short tour around the city (for NYC) or the historic district in other cities. Or you feature a bus tour that highlights all the great places that that current movie was filmed. Georgette Blau is already doing this (hence the name ScreenTours) by pointing out the square featured in a key scene in the movie “Sex in the City” – but I don’t know if she’s tying in to active partnerships with theaters.

We all know that those tourist buses are very expensive. The cost alone has kept me from getting on them. Perhaps Georgette could shorten the tour, or offer a quick jaunt for $10.

Or – offer lunch tours and form a partnership with the deli guy to have deli items included or sold on the tour!

These may not be the exact right ideas to boost these small businesses during the recession, but these are just the beginning of some brainstorming to show how a small business owner MUST think creatively around their value proposition – aiming to not just survive a recession – but thrive in it!

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