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Featured Articles
Unless you have been hiding in a cave somewhere, you have heard that the U.S. economy is doing poorly. Housing starts are down, the value of the dollar is down, car sales are down, real estate is down, retail is down, gas prices are up, food prices are up, bankruptcies are up and the sky is falling. What is a person to do?
1. Don’t Drink the Kool Aid
The news is sensationalized and fear sells. Things are rarely as good as they seem and things are rarely as bad as they seem. If you allow yourself togive in to the news, you will determine your destiny. When people tell me about the bad economy, I tell them I have chosen not to participate.
2. You Can’t Cut Your Way to a Profit
Expense management is done at all times, not just in bad markets. Cutting expenses in bad times is a misnomer.  It’s like taking Tylenol for a heroin addiction. You set your good and bad habits in good markets, not bad. Be selectively extravagant and prudently frugal. I have never seen a business survive and thrive a down market by trying to cut expenses as their long-term strategy.
3. Don’t Cut Your Life Line
Some of the easiest variable expenses to cut out are advertising  and marketing. That also takes a bad situation and makes it worse. When your business drops and you take action to stop the flow even more, you are doomed. Be smarter with your marketing and adopt direct response methods that can be tracked and measured, but don’t cut marketing because it’s the easiest cut.
4. Dance With Who Bought You
The past and present customers are the lifeblood of any business. These customers are also the most overlooked and underutilized asset in ALL businesses. Everyone gives lip service to their glorious love of their customers, but what are you really doing to create and nurture the relationship? Do you have a relationship building program that creates over 50 positive customer contacts per year? You can have all the BDCs and CRMs you want, and that does not mean you are creating personalized-based marketing that creates relationships. The people who have done business with you already like and trust you and will most likely do business again - and bring others - if they are appreciated, rewarded and, yes, asked. NOBODY does a good enough job with their customers. There’s gold in them thar hills.
5. Make the Bad News Good
Use all the bad news and the fear and negative emotions associated with it to your advantage. Use the headlines in your marketing and advertising and become the solution provider, i.e., Tips for Winning in a Bad Economy.
Mark Tewart is an author, speaker, consultant and trainer for the auto industry. You can sign up for his newsletters and view his blog at www.marktewart.com
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