Recently, the Atlanta Small Business Examiner’s Lisa Sims wrote a piece regarding lessons small businesses should have learned in the current economic climate. Sims offers some strong tips for small business to think about as we enter into almost a full year of economic uncertainty. Her points included:

Minimize expenses. Review your operating budget for your business. Are there items that can be eliminated or reduced until conditions improve? For instance, can you reduce some of your marketing costs by seeking out low-cost or no-cost marketing alternatives such as social networking sites Facebook and Twitter? Every dollar saved can be reinvested back into your business.

• Be creative. Think outside the box. There are numerous low-cost or no-cost alternatives to almost every paid service or product that you use in your business. You just have to be creative.

• Be flexible. Pay attention to market trends and anticipate what impact they will or could have on your business and plan accordingly. The best thing about being a small business is that you can implement changes in your business quicker than your big business counterparts. Just be flexible.

Lisa tips are spot on for small businesses to evaluate moving forward. To build off herpoints, let me offer some additional advice:

Mindy Sanderson

• Don’t cut the good stuff! As you review your operating expenses, in particular your marketing plan, make sure you know what marketing initiatives are working for your small business. While Facebook and Twitter are great (and FREE) applications for connecting with existing and potential customers, they do not guarantee customers walking through your doors. Make sure you are testing your marketing efforts, whether you’re using email marketing, direct mail or advertising on and off line to assure you know what marketing efforts are working for you. For other ideas on how to attract customers, please refer to a past post I wrote on generating more customers.

• Join forces on creativity. As I’ve touched upon in the past, teaming with another small business in your area can provide a variety of positive results. Most importantly you open your business up to a potential new customer base (and vice versa for your partner) which can help generate sales. In addition, joining forces allows you and your partner to create events that will help recruit new customers while sharing the workload and expenses to put on the event. Bringing in another company also opens up the channels of creativity that can help put on a better event.

What areas of your small business are you concentrating on as you move your business forward? Are their areas you could make improvements to that will help your business run more efficiently?

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