Here’s how.

1. Change Your Industry

One reason profits might be down is if the entire industry has been hit. If everyone else in your industry is having a hard time as well, what can you do? The answer is – change industries.

Of course, you can’t very well switch to a completely foreign industry and abandon all your contacts and clients. Instead, try switching to a related industry.

When the economy crashed in 2008, many of the “help men get dates” businesses took a huge hit. Many businesses that used to be bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars a month were suddenly struggling.

What did one successful entrepreneur do? He moved into the “help women get dates” industry. The move turned out brilliantly and helped him save his business.

No matter what industry you’re in, there are probably half a dozen side industries you could move into. If your main industry is having trouble, try expanding to a different industry.

2. Launch a New Product

Nothing brings in new energy like the launching of a new product.

Apple had been struggling for some time before the iPod came out. The Apple 3 was a colossal failure, costing hundreds of millions of dollars. The drama of Steve Jobs leaving and then coming back cost the company dearly in bad PR.

But the iPod, and eventually the iPhone, changed all that. The launch of a new product brought a lot of new excitement to the table.

The same applies to smaller businesses. What new products or projects can you announce that would get people excited?

3. Try New Marketing Channels

What are two or three kinds of marketing channels you’ve never tried before, that are completely outside the scope of what you’ve done in the past?

For example, if you’ve done SEO and PPC, why not try advertising in a college newspaper? Or buy remnant radio ad space?

If you’ve only tried buying advertising in the past, why not try partnering for a big joint venture deal? Or try guest blogging on a few big sites?

One reason for declining profits might be that your marketing “formula” just isn’t working out right. Instead of making tweaks, try making big changes to see what works and what doesn’t.

Changing these three things – your industry, your product and your marketing – can really help get both the excitement and cashflow up again.

This might seem non-sensical at first. Afterall, the client is the one paying you, so shouldn’t they have complete control? The simple answer is no, and here’s why. Quite often, clients don’t know exactly what they want, and quite often, they have no idea what kind of time or effort goes into the services you provide.

This means that if you constantly defer to the client to ask them what they’d like over the course of your project, you may find yourself giving them choices that they don’t need to be making, and aren’t really necessarily capable of making. This can turn an otherwise simple project into a nightmare.

If you’re working on an hourly basis, then clients making changes left right and center might not be a big deal since the more changes they make, the more hours you’ll bill. However, if you’re working on a per project basis, then the fewer changes and alterations you have, the better. And this means that if you can keep as much control over the details of the project as possible, you’ll end up having to deal with far less revisions.

The reality is, if you defer to the client for input on every small detail, they’ll probably end up asking for things that might be outside the scope of the price you quoted or impossible due to time restrictions. However, had you just made those decisions yourself, you’d never have had to deal with that at all.

Always make sure that everything that you’re going to deliver and all details are worked out and carved in stone contractually before you start a project. If your client doesn’t know exactly what they want, then either have them think harder about their requirements, or make it very clear to them that further revisions or changes will be billed on top of the initial price.

Some clients will try to work you to death for the least amount of money possible, and these aren’t the kind of clients you want to deal with. Avoid that problem by making sure that any time a project isn’t clearly defined from the start, that the clients understand that either a) creative control is in your hands or b) that they have the option of asking for revisions, but they will be billed for any changes that require extra time or work.