David Scher of family-owned Auto Supply Company (ASC) in Los Angeles had been having trouble with his marketing since 2007. Not only were statistics down in all 4 stores, his entire industry was in a serious decline. Mailers and promotional pieces which had done well no longer worked at all.
He turned things around for his business and maybe you can, too.
Recently I read an article by a very able economist, named William Truax, who specializes in tax strategies. Bill, not one to pull punches, brought up some disturbing information concerning the United States and its future. To sum up, he said: “The global political and economic reality is that the United States is a declining world power and has all the problems one would associate with the condition.”
This was not the main intent of the article, however. He was most interested in pointing out that neither presidential candidates, Senators Obama or McCain, nor former contender for the Democratic nomination, Senator Clinton, have offered any concrete ideas as to how they hope to address the actual economic situation that the United States is facing. He went into some detail in regards to each of the three and what he feels is their actual lack of understanding of the current economic situation.
There are many different marketing styles in today’s business world. Some of these marketing tactics work and some don’t. I’ve put together these Ten Marketing Tips to help lay down some basic rules for creating a good marketing program.
I hope these help.
Business strategies that promote sustainability are important to CBS. That’s one of the reasons we are teaming up with Cory Brennan, founder of the Green Leadership Consortium in the San Fernando Valley in California. Cory, a valued associate of CBS, is an innovator who is setting the stage for a lot more green businesses to emerge in Southern California. Read her article on the Green Leadership Consortium website to get a better understanding of What is a Green Business.
Not everyone is taking the tidal wave of economic and financial bad news lying down. Beginning in January, the Industrial Council and the City of Commerce teamed up with Creative Business Strategies, Inc. (CBS), a La Canada-based consulting firm specializing in entrepreneurs. Together they launched their 2008 campaign to assist business owners and entrepreneurs to brace themselves for the rigors of a threatening economy.
What prompted Dianne to seek help from Creative Business Strategies was a sudden discovery. She is an independent financial services broker. Her job is to make sales, and her company provides a number of incentives and bonuses for brokers who produce well. But Dianne was too busy battling a firestorm of documents. She had no clue how much she actually sold.
She discovered at the end of last year that she had been less than $500 away from a benchmark that would have earned her a hefty bonus, and what is worse, she had the sales where made to meet the quota – but did not turn in the paperwork in time. Her disorganization had cost her a lot!
The Production and Time Management Program, by CBS, is a short but highly effective procedure that gets any executive or any staff person fully on top of their work load. In this case, the consultant also created customized spreadsheets and showed her how to use them so she could easily monitor her now streamlined sales pipeline. With its implementation, Dianne knows every step of every sales cycle and can track it until it is finalized and all the paper is in order. She does not randomly pick what she will work on. She can tell where her next sale should come from, and the next. She systematically moves each cycle through the pipeline. Even if it snags, she can see what is needed and fix it. In short, she has become a manager of her production line.
After working with the consultant, a pleasant surprise greeted her when she returned from her week-long vacation. “Even after being gone for a week, I walked into my office and I knew exactly where to start with my papers. I still knew what I needed to do and there was no confusion about it. A month ago, I would not have even believed that this was possible!”
Last heard from our broker she had moved up from #12 to #4 in her company’s sales rankings. She says she intends to be #1 and surpass the lead broker, who was selling five times what Dianne was selling before. “I am up for the challenge, and thanks to Creative Business Strategies, I’m doing it!”
Probably around the time of the election, the government will look back at our current economy and declare that we’ve been in a recession for some time. They don’t proclaim a recession until after we have had six months of declining GDP (Gross Domestic Product – how much we as a nation produce).
Six of the past 7 recessions have been ushered in by a real estate crash. The weakness in the real estate market is unmistakable – prices in most areas continue to drop, houses take longer to sell, the lenders have tightened up like a drum and foreclosures are coming onto the market in an ever-increasing stream. Our current crash is now the worst since 1991. And this effects an amazing number of jobs and lives.
The Fed’s lowering of interest rates seems to be having little effect in reviving this market. The banks are more concerned about the regulators’ crack-down on the excesses of the recent mortgage lending binge.
New higher reporting requirements are revealing that some of the largest investment banks on Wall Street are insolvent, requiring massive government intervention and costing more jobs.
Since January, imports from China have been declining for the first time in recent history, fall-out from the Mattel scandal and the food scare.
One of the largest investment banks on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, issued an all-out recession call last January, with the silver lining that they expect it to be relatively short (only 2-3 quarters long) and light (only 0.5% total downturn). Realtors are being told to expect an upturn in their market next year.
All that is fine, but WHAT DO WE DO NOW?
First of all, as tough as this current economy is, and as scary as the idea of a recession is, we have to step back and take a hard look at what’s really happening – the big picture. Otherwise we may make some bad mistakes that will hurt us and our business ventures.
Here’s the truth. Most areas of the economy have come into this in robust good shape and the drop is projected to be quite small. This doesn’t help if you’re one of the ones caught in the squeeze. So here is the #1 thing I would recommend to businesses and individuals:
Promote as a business and as an individual. This means that marketing is NOT the first thing you cut. Instead, you must find ways to increase the effectiveness of your marketing and increase even that. I do many free or low-cost seminars through local Chambers of Commerce which will give you what you need to know to promote effectively. You can find these on my website at www.creativestrats.com.
Many of the biggest companies in the US got their foothold during economic downturns when their competition stopped marketing and they didn’t. THIS is the time to really increase your market share.
Produce as an individual. Are you one of the most valuable people where you work? If not, this would be a very smart time to work hard on becoming the “Employee of the Month” for the next few months. If layoffs occur, you want to be the last one that management would consider laying off.
You might even want to polish up your blog and take whatever steps you can to make yourself as attractive and visible as possible.
There are many other steps one could and should take. Obviously this is a good time to inspect what you are doing and adapt it to better survive in our current environment. Of course we need to economize. But be sure you do the promote/produce steps above first. Then you will be on the fast track to do the right thing to survive and prosper in today’s world.
David Sanders is CEO of Creative Business Strategies, a firm which serves entrepreneurs and professionals throughout the US. He can be reached at info@creativestrats.com.
This coming Wednesday, 5/14 at the Bell Gardens Chamber of Commerce in the LA area, I’ll be delivering this exciting sales seminar. If you are in the area, please call and we will be happy to have you attend as our guest!
David Sanders, CEO
Welcome to my blog. We welcome you and look forward to providing you information that is not just valuable, but invaluable to your business and life. There is a lot to learn and know, and we’ll do our best to contribute to your survival.
David Sanders
CEO
Creative Business Strategies, Inc.