In running any kind of business, it's inevitable that sometimes business will slow down. This might occur due to an upcoming holiday, seasonal variations, or uncontrollable circumstances. As a small-business owner, you have a choice in terms of how you view slowdown - it can either be a time of increased stress, frustration, worry - or you can view it as an opportunity to upgrade your business processes or improve quality of your life.

Here are ten strategies you can use to work through a business slowdown:

1)Market more concertedly. Statistics suggest that new businesses spend (or should spend) about 40-60% of time in marketing and related activities. If you are experiencing a business slowdown, it's always a good time to create and launch another marketing initiative. It is important to continue to promote your business creatively and cost-effectively. What better way to spend a slow period than in taking actions to attract new business? (Plus, taking action will keep worry or stress from overwhelming you.)

2)Relax. This strategy works if you are feeling good about your business and your accomplishments. Use this time to catch up on some sleep, read a few good books, in short, take some time off for rest and relaxation. Sometimes, time away can help spark creative ideas or profitable insights.

3)Get ahead. Use slow time to get ahead on weekly or monthly projects. Look ahead to future months and see if there are any steps you can take, today, that would position you more solidly in future. This can help you feel more in control as pace picks up again.

4)Invest in additional training/learning. A business slowdown is a great time to upgrade your knowledge and skills, you have time and incentive. Take classes, learn more about your industry, become even more valuable to your customers by adding new products or services based on your new knowledge.

There certainly is an important role for a competent commercial law attorney to advise and prepare legal structure of a business purchase and sale transaction. The problems arise when lawyers see themselves as business negotiators whose mission is to get "best deal" for their clients. They frequently forget that "best deal" has to involve both parties, buyer and seller, and that compromise is usually best solution. Lawyers generally have a very difficult time with compromise in this type of situation because they often see their role as advising their clients on how to get better deal. Usually, an attempt at a lopsided deal for either party will result in "no deal" at all.

Jungle Law #2: Caveat Businessus Emptor; (Let The Business Buyer Beware!)

As a matter of basic principle (and law in most States), all business brokers dealing with public are bound to be honest and forthright in their conduct concerning businesses that they represent for sale. But they also have a fiduciary relationship (position of trust) to uphold between themselves and their clients (the business seller, in most cases). They must present a business for sale in its "best light" without misrepresenting any significant facts but at same time not pointing out all of potential business pitfalls. This usually establishes an adversarial relationship between buyer and broker as well as between buyer and seller. The best course of action for a buyer is to trust only what they can verify during a rigorous due diligence process and best approach on part of seller/broker is full disclosure of all pertinent information.

Jungle Law #3: A Business Is Worth Only Whatever Someone Is Willing To Pay For It At A Particular Point In Time!

Buyers and sellers are natural adversaries; sellers want as much as they can get and buyer wants to pay as little as possible. The broker is intensely interested too, because commission amount is usually based on a percentage of total selling price. So, what process should you use to value a business? Forget about putting a value on assets based on resale value. Forget about comparing business to one in next town that sold for a particular amount. Forget about all "rules of thumb" like X times earnings or Y times gross income or some dollar amount per account or any other shortcut formula. A business value, and therefore its selling price, only makes sense when it's based on capitalized earnings stream. Capitalization is simply process used to determine today's value of a stream of future earnings. In case of valuing a business, "today's value" is value of business, and "stream of future earnings" is expected future years' profit of business based on current earnings. Most small businesses sell for a price in range of 2-5 times earnings before interest and tax expenses are deducted.

Jungle Law #4: A Business Buyer Is Really Buying A Stream Of Earnings!

The assets of business are just tools of trade that enable an earnings stream to be realized. Without earnings stream, business essentially has no value. You should note that in using this method, a business may actually be worth less than its fair market asset value or in many cases worth substantially more. A seller will be able to get most they can for a business by showing a buyer true investment value in business based on provable earnings.

Jungle Law #5: Ignore All Claims Of Unreported Income!

This is a very sensitive subject known as unreported (to IRS) cash sales. Some business sellers may try to get you to accept their claim that they had significant amounts of cash income that did not show up on their IRS Tax Return and accordingly want you to include this phantom income in your valuation of their business. I highly recommend that you totally ignore these claims and deal only with business's reported income. Who is to say if business owner's claims are true? If business owner will lie to Uncle Sam might they not also lie to you?

Jungle Law #6: Most Sellers Are Fibbers! (Or They At Least Stretch The Truth)