During very bad or very good economic times, many businesses either abandon their approach to try something new that might work better in the short term or  abandon their approach to latch on to a hot new idea or a hot new market category.

More often than not, this creates sustained failure.

What is the business you’re in? Who are you trying to deliver value to? How do you try to deliver that value? Take your time and write down the answers to those questions. Own your answers. Then stay the course and keep working to add value. Too often people run away from what they are good at doing that really does add tremendous value to a targeted audience just because their economic returns aren’t great enough at the moment.

Stay the course and believe in breakthroughs. Maybe you just need to make your product a little bit better, maybe you just need to understand your desired customers a little bit better, or maybe you just need one key introduction that can open up a whole new world for you. Those things won’t happen if you keep changing the business you’re in, the types of customers you want to serve, and/or the way you deliver value.