Aim to fill a carefully defined niche. Every advisor tells you to do this. Now is the time to find your niche! The bigger businesses get, the more voids they leave. When large businesses cut back, they produce even more and bigger holes in the business-world fabric. Change and expand your business to fill one or more of those holes.

Consider adding a new product or service. Once you are operating at cash flow breakeven, it may be the moment to add a new product line or service. Every company in a difficult market is looking for new business. You may be able to strike a uniquely favorable arrangement with new suppliers. (Ask for special terms to build inventory without impacting your cash flows.) If you can do this, you will also be a step ahead of competitors who are waiting for the tide to turn. Also, Could the Right Time to Buy Another Related Business Be Right Now? “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” Dickens was referring to a revolution instead of a temporarily disrupted economy or a longer recession. His words are still a good tagline for a disrupted independent business scene.

When you look back at a particularly difficult time, it may well go down in history as the era when investors should be buying small-to-medium-sized businesses. Maybe the best reason yet to look at a business combination is to add changes in order to survive.