Take a long look at your budget. Are there expenses that aren’t bringing in an ROI or you know just aren’t working. Cut them from your budget. Even small items can add up. Take a look at the corporate credit cards. What expenses can you prune? It’s amazing how many items get paid for and then either never used, or used and then forgotten about.

Cut back on discretionary spending such as travel, high-cost lunches, etc., unless the spending is related to ROI. Obviously, if trade shows bring in business, you would not want to cut back on those. But a lot of your discretionary spending can be pruned.

Don’t preemptively cut staff. In past recessions, companies that reduced their staffs because of a recession took years to come back because of the loss of key company and business knowledge. Instead, use this as an opportunity to update and train your staff. Studies have shown that companies that invested in themselves and their employees recovered quickly after a recession. Also, the pandemic changed employers’ recession strategy. Because so many employees never went back to their pre-pandemic jobs, employers want to hold onto good employees. It’s easier to keep good employees than to find them.

In HBR’s, “Roaring Out of Recession,” companies that had “layoffs may reduce costs quickly, they make recovery more difficult. Companies run the risk of scaling up too late, especially if hiring is more difficult than they anticipated. People are loath to work for organizations that reduce head count in difficult times. Moreover, as these companies rehire, costs shoot up.”

In Roaring Out Recession, it states, “The CEOs of pragmatic companies recognize that cost cutting is necessary to survive a recession, that investment is equally essential to spur growth, and that they must manage both at the same time if their companies are to emerge as post-recession leaders.”