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In today’s challenging economic times, many people in business tend to cut their budgets, which results in purchasing less. Oftentimes they receive a mandate from someone that they report to that says, “Cut your budget by 20 percent.”

The question you need to consider is, “Will my business’s products or services be part of the 20 percent budget reduction?”

If that is the case, your customer evidently doesn’t see what you offer as a must-have product or service. Another way to look at it is, if you are in that 20 percent that gets eliminated, your client sees you as something or someone that he or she spends money on instead of seeing you as an investment from whom they net a return that is vital to the success of their business.

In business, your products and/or services truly are a niceto- have for some of your clients but aren’t truly crucial for their success. If they happen to cut you from their budget, don’t take it personally, and just recognize that economies always go in cycles, and there’s a good chance that they’ll be back, as long as you stay in touch with them and maintain a positive relationship.

The real tragedy is when your products and/or services truly do net a positive ROI for your client, and they are unaware that by cutting you, they are reducing their own profit margin. We call that, tripping over dollars to cut pennies and nickels.

So the question is, how do your clients and prospective clients view your services? Typically, the cost of getting new business far outweighs the cost of retaining existing business—does your existing book of business know the exact ROI of using you?

Simply put, what is your “quantifiable value proposition?”

In order to make sure that you are not in the 20 percent that gets eliminated or passed over for a purchase, you have a homework assignment. Can everyone in your organization articulate and quantify, either in a dollar amount or by percentage, what the clients of your particular company receive by investing their hard-earned dollars with you?

The harsh reality is that after the election this November, everyone will freely admit that a double-dip recession is imminent. When that occurs, a mandate to cut budgets usually follows. The second part of your homework assignment is to make sure your clients know in dollar amount or by percentage what they receive by investing their hard-earned dollars with you.

The truth is, this is a habit that we should all be doing in business, whether or not there’s a recession or a double-dip recession looming.

This is a valuable exercise because if your client base can articulate and quantify what the ROI of doing business with you is, you can rest assured that they can articulate it with whomever gave them the mandate to cut the budget in the first place.