In times like these, it’s more important than ever to maintain your brand identity and focus on what makes your company stand out. You can’t let yourself, or your business, be paralyzed by fear, says Robin Fisher Roffer, author of The Fearless Fish Out of Water: How to Succeed When You’re the Only One Like You. As part of your business development plan, highlight those qualities that make you different and more desirable than your competitors. Playing up what makes you special could be the very thing that keeps you in business. Roffer offers these tips:

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• Go fishing for the real you. Peel away all the layers that made you a jack-of-all-trades and focus on the area of your business development strategy that you’re truly passionate about, so you can excel. Be creative and impress your customer. That’s how you ensure you keep bringing in revenue.

• Find a few fish like you. In these tough times, your clients are likely feeling just as nervous and unsure as you are. Your business development process should include some serious face time to build your client relationships. Doing so will help ease your fears and theirs. Find out what attracted them to you, and ask what you can do to be of further service to them. Partner with them now and not only will you make it through the recession, but you’ll have an even stronger business.

• Swim in their ocean your way. Roffer was once hired by an organization where disrespectful behavior was commonplace among the employees. She knew right away that she would have trouble fitting in. The relationship threatened her integrity, so she decided no amount of money was worth her soul and she made a decision to walk away, despite the loss in revenue. Don’t compromise yourself. If you do, you may not recognize yourself by the end of things, and that will leave you in a much worse place than a recession ever could.

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