1. Most one year contracts have the potential to become three year contracts if you price them right—but you will have to ask for the sale.
2. Speakers should always be thinking about what they have to sell. When you speak, everyone in the audience wants a piece of you. Don’t just sell your book—sell your trilogy.
3. Every old presentation has the potential to be a free giveaway (download) for a prospective client–this can convert a cold call into a warm call. Be liberal in how you share your ideas.
4. We laugh at the words “but wait…” often used in infomercials, but packaging (selling multiple items for one low price) is true multiplication and it reduces the chances that people measure you by the reference price in their head.
5. The basic law of pricing is to make sure your customers always feel like they got more than they expected. Never let your price = subtraction. No surprises, no add-ons, but always offer benefits for buying more.
6. Any advertisement – even PDF ads online can become framed pictures for clients (if they are classy), or could also become direct mail ads or can be attached to giveaways.
7. Why simply call potential clients when you can go to a tradeshow where they display their good/services—you now have a captive audience. You can go booth to booth and talk to people who are primed and ready to talk to you.

Well, you get the idea—you have to stretch and multiply those promotional dollars. Even mistakes can appear like a benefit. Apply is having problems with its antenna on the G4 iPhone so now they are giving away cases to solve the problem—cases than also protect the product.

For you next company brainstorming meeting—take a tour of your company and inventory all items than might have promotional value. Then decide how you might use them effectively. Hard times require guerilla responses.

Let us know of any questions or concerns you have by commenting below, or by contacting us here.

To summarize, nothing was working from a marketing point of view during the early 1980s. So we did what everyone said would never work. We cold-called the planet. One simple question, “Do you plan to build some time in the next year?” What happened is we got started in the sales process very early, while the client was still dreaming and sketching on a napkin. When the economy was flat, we secured many small jobs. In 1984, I got 16 contracts in a three week period and that was out year. When the economy started up we were riding the wave.

Stop listening to the experts and move your body. Spend as much time as you can talking to past clients, and let them do the introducing of you/your company to the new clients. Do more work on the come. Make special deals. Show clients that you appreciate their loyalty. When you have success, get it in print and use if for promotional pieces and post it on the internet. Marketing is making the phone ring, the computer ping, and door bell ring. Now is not the time for wimps. It will take 3 times more work to get the same amount of business you used to get—let your employees know what it will take.

Lastly, remember marketing is not about addition, it is about multiplication. Go for long-term contracts, ask for two instead of one. Offer valuable add-ons. Make suggestions as you work on the job = more business. You may have fewer clients, so do the most with what the good Lord gives you.

1. Find which markets are recession proof, and begin positioning yourself in these markets during good times.

2. Look for industries that grew through the last recession and target them.

3.  Minimize your long-term financial entanglements and those commitments that make huge demands on cash flow.  Develop a promotion fund for recessions.

4. Consistently educate your people about how you will intensify your marketing efforts if the economy slips.

5.  Use economically sensitive contracts with your employees–via incentives such as commissions.

6. Provide contingency money to increase the size of your market area in an emergency.

The reality is you simply have to work harder and smarter.

1. If you targeted customers in the past—you will have to do that better. Enlarge the pie—and that also means enlarging your geographic reach. If you used to sell only to Indiana, you will have to expand your geographical reach.
2. The internet provides a huge key. For example, even if you have nothing to do, you can fish for leads on the internet, and find those additional internet communities to communicate with. Trust me, there is an internet community for everything.
3. Hard times provide you with an opportunity to use both technology and your personal skills to help your clients be successful. Personalize your internet site with YouTube videos. Interview your current high value clients—let them tell about their wonderful relationship with you.
4. During hard times, people are looking for deals, so you have to give them to them. For example, it they buy from you monthly—give them a deal, but require them to lock in for a longer contract period, then use that arrangement to take similar measures with your suppliers.
5. If you provide services, you might be doing some upfront work for free with the commitment to prove your value—then the client pays you for your services and pays for the previous free work, if they are convinced of your value.
6. Lose the chip on your shoulder. You may have made $300 per hour as a consultant before the recession. Midwest companies now might only be willing to hire you 1 day per week, for the year for $30K. That is one fourth of what you used to get, but at least it is consistent and predictable.

Let me end with some thoughts about why recessions are good. First, they put marginal producers out of business. The good people tend to stay busy. Secondly, they help us by teaching us not to take things for granted. EVERYONE gets nicer during a recession; that little restaurant wants you to return.

• Bureaucracy destroys—It will suck the life out of you, so flatten it.
• Nothing happens unless we sell something—forget about all your problems for now except innovation and marketing.
• Your $8 an hour employees may be killing you–how are they managing the phones and what are they saying to your customers?
• Are your $100 an hour people doing $8 an hour work? Self-explanatory.
• Recessions either make us go inward or outward: you will need both AND FAST.
• Working harder at what doesn’t work, doesn’t work.
• Strengths are wonderful, especially if they are relevant. SWOT analysis is overrated. Start with a true market.
• Get your best people on board so they don’t jump overboard.
• Marketing is all about multiplication not addition. Don’t think about 3 + 4, think about 3 x 4.
• I’ve made money and lost money and my experience has been that it is more fun making money.
• Opportunity encourages everyone—opportunity creates a healthy career path for everyone. Every healthy organization understands this. We all want to work for companies like this.
• Harness the leaders or plan for their farewell parties. They will want a severance check too. Oh yeah, some more bad news…they will become your future competitors.
• Strategic success depends on track record of successful implementers—you can’t build a company on the backs of “order takers”… you need leaders.
• What does your corporate culture give birth to? Small iterations and followership? Or big ideas and leadership?
• Constipated thinking – you need fiber boy! Fiber = new pictures and new paradigms.
• Apple never seems to flat-line. They understand what Peter Drucker meant when he said, all you need is Innovation and Marketing … everything else can be outsourced.
• Tom Peters was right: Business is fashion, so lose the leisure suits boys, and position yourself for the future.
• The web provides the accountability Adam Smith envisioned in his seminal Wealth of Nations. Smith envisioned the accountability provided by the small town where local opinions about you mattered. Now everyone evaluates you on the web = true democracy. Either you are the best, or your days are numbered.
• Backwards marketing—means you are going in reverse. Backwards marketing is working to please the boss instead of working to please the customer. This is a sure sign of a company whose days are numbered.
• Matthew 5:41 people—celebrate those second mile people who always go above and beyond the call of duty…they are the future of your enterprise.
• Dull, concrete sequential types or gooey dreamers—just remember to get them in right order i.e., gooey dreamers first. We desperately need both types.

Are you sure you would not benefit from consulting? Midwest companies have employed Inspired Consulting, Inc. over 120 times. Give us a chance to help.

I try to get waiters and waitresses to ask me, “if everything is excellent” rather than the typical “is everything good?” Surely they want my meal to be more than good. I won’t come back for “good” when I can have “excellent” somewhere else. So let’s play with this idea a little:

-McDonalds finally has a Cinnamon roll that is very good. But what would McDonald’s profit be if they served Cold Stone-quality ice cream? Wow.

-What would Taco Bell be if they nailed a good desert? Cinnamon Twists? How about Fried Ice Cream? Oreo ice cream Burrito dessert (wrapped in a Crepe)? Wow.

-What would Dairy Queen be if their food were as good as their ice cream?

Phil must be into junk food, but don’t you agree that it is incredibly frustrating seeing business people leave so much money on the table?

Some interesting questions:

• What would your customers say about your company, its products, and its services?
• Do they like your service people? Do they feel like your service people are well-trained and attentive to their needs?
• Do your field people do a good job of delivering on the promises made by your service people? Many companies get one side of the equation right, but not both.
• Do they feel like you are responsive and customer-oriented?
• Are your employees empowered to solve problems or do you put your customers though a nightmarish process when something goes wrong?
• Are you worth the price your customers pay or do you simply have a mini-monopoly that may easily be dispensed with if a new competitor entered your market space?
• Does your company do a good job accommodating bumps in demand?
• Have you found the balance between price, profit, and teamwork?
• Are your policies built to make your life better or to make your customers’ lives better? Don’t you love the message each company has when you call for service? “We are experiencing an abnormally high volume of calls, please wait while hell freezes over.”
• Would your customers recommend you to others without reservation?

Well, you get the idea. Are you sure you won’t benefit from consulting? Midwest companies have learned that you can’t fix what you don’t perceive as broken. It is often difficult to self-evaluate what your true strengths and limitations are. What is needed is a comprehensive evaluation guided by the leadership of your company (leaders set the boundaries because they will use the information if they asked for the evaluation). Insiders who are well trained—and who have progressive bosses–can sometimes do the work themselves. Answer this question: Will your employees and your customers be totally frank with you? That is the rub, isn’t it? Often because of internal political realities or the customer’s fear that they will hurt your career/company, it makes sense to have an experienced (but disinterested/non-involved) outsider do the work. The final content can be nicely folded into a strategic marketing plan that helps to insure a profitable future.

Let’s face it… If you don’t know your customers, it seems reasonable that life will be difficult. Most things can be fixed, but only after you understand why they are broken.

Question: What will great tech tools do for you if your business model stinks? Answer: Multiply the negative impact of your lousy business model. It is important to realize that a great company or product coupled with a great story becomes even greater when the product/service is empowered by technology. So don’t fight technology and help from consulting. Midwest companies understand that only about 20% of customers are Twitter or Facebook users, but this percentage is growing fast. Facebook was never developed to be a marketing tool (Myspace was), so it will be awhile before it is completely decoded by marketers. Right now, most of what I see, at least with social marketing’s advertising efforts, appears to be a blunt tool (exceptions in high tech products). I have yet to find a person who has purchased anything because of on an ad on Facebook.

Keep in mind that tools such as Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter can be used as both internal and external tools. These tools can be used to quickly motivate people, especially if the potential purchase is already in the thinking of the consumer—technology helps to move the perceived “need,” up in the priority list. For example, if I were thinking about going to a U2 concert, discounted U2 tickets would grab my full attention and I might make that decision quickly. Selective perception/timing is always an important element in the process.

Most agree that Twitter will continue to become an even more powerful tool, as it already is a powerful internal marketing tool. It is helpful in gathering data, especially in certain types of consulting. Midwest companies have learned that they can send their entire sales force a positive motivational message each morning or be able to tell everyone that a certain salesperson just nailed a huge sale. So don’t run from technology.

Just a closing comment about the current buzz relating to social marketing: Social marketing is a very important trend, but most marketers have made it sound like it is everything. Not every customer will hyperventilate about the next “new thing,” but marketers often do. They get paid to study fads, fashions and trends. This is true even in consulting. Midwest companies should understand that, although the speed of technological change is increasing, the adoption and use of technology is happening at a slower rate. Embrace it, but don’t lose focus of marketing techniques that have served you well in the past. Keep in mind that not many 55+ aged people are using these tools.

Maybe the greatest example of this “blindness” is what I call “industrial myopic thinking.” Most players in a given industry are dancing to the same music. It gets worse, because there is probably some industry “guru” telling everybody how to do the virtually the same thing (the old paradigm) … only better (yeah, he is the best at using the old industry model).

How do you break the industry mindset? Well, you might need us. We will provide an infusion of new ideas from our approach to consulting. Midwest companies definitely need new pictures—expanding vision. Don’t start with what you have, but rather start with a blank page. You can lose your god-given creativity when you have to start with what you currently have in place. Our job is to push you hard to seek and see new opportunities—and to help you see if you are prepared (have the right people and systems in place) to successfully implement them.

A very good example of a company that is breaking the industry paradigm is Progressive Insurance. Flo is working her magic—yep, she is crazy, but you gotta love her, and she has your attention. She is letting you choose your company…even set your own price. Her sales space does what every outstanding “service” does—it tangibilizes the intangible, even the mundane, and what can be more mundane than insurance? She makes the dull and uninteresting both accessible and desirable. If you think about it, what Progressive is doing  is quite an accomplishment. The marketing lights are on at Progressive Insurance so kudos to Progressive for their amazing marketing program.

It is interesting to note that Geico also represents multiple companies much like Progressive does. An advertising idea that most marketers are unaware of is something called “preemption.” Geico’s paradigm busting focus is on ease and speed rather than giving you multiple companies to choose from—but that is exactly what they do i.e., they represent multiple companies—that is how they get the lower price. Their preemptive advertising technique is what makes for the difference.

The idea is to breathe life into the mundane. Ultimately, marketers change commodities into real, and sometimes incredibly attractive, products. Listen to this information on a label of a bottle of Sam’s Club water: “Sam Walton believed in innovative products, made to our own higher standards. Our Purified Drinking Water has been triple filtered and ozonated to offer you the consistent quality of the freshest, sodium free water. We enhanced the water by adding essential minerals for an even more satisfying and refreshing pure taste. We believe Sam’s Choice Purified Drinking Water offers a better value than the leading national brands. We think you’ll agree.”

Sam’s understands the “great story” idea. Sam’s has taken a commodity and made it a differentiated, branded, product that is quite attractive. If one can do that with water (a true commodity), imagine what you could do with your products. So for the sake of example, let’s take the idea a step farther.

A few years ago the Wall Street Journal listed top paid service workers in American. A young waitress in my community made $120K serving meals and drinks at a restaurant. Apparently, her clientele were prosperous business types who would come in and purchase glasses of Cognac for themselves and their friends. At about $50 per glass, the tips were very generous. This story when told in the Wall Street Journal enhanced the reputation of both the restaurant and the young woman who received the tips. It is all about the story.

Here is my example of a great story that might work for Starbucks—COFFEE AT $50 PER CUP! Impossible you say??? The coffee would have to be rare, grown near the base of a volcano (richest soil in the world), very difficult to harvest, sold only in the most exclusive Starbucks locations such as the first store at Pike’s Place in Seattle, and the beans must be hand-picked by Pigmies in the Himalayan mountains.”

This is just a semi-humorous example. As you can see, the bottom line is that such a product would need to have a great story.  A great story sells, and if it sells well enough—the latest forms of high-tech tools will ultimately be used to find the product. Let us help you with the ideas produced by our consulting. Midwest companies have used Inspire Consulting, Inc. for 20+ years to create these kinds of marketing solutions.

Lack of adequate customer feedback loop is a death sentence. Feedback should allow you to hold your employees accountable and should provide you with the content needed to effectively build the training programs that are needed to train your employees. I see this “feedback” mistake being made over and over again. It can cost you your company.

You need to see how your customers are responding to both your sales people and your marketing personnel (and anybody else who has customer contact). You need to know how your customer service department is serving you. Great marketers understand that customer service is not just about solving current customer problems, but rather it is about setting the foundation for developing future sales and building a relationship with a potential lifelong customer. Customer loyalty reduces your marketing costs, often dramatically. The old adage (which, by the way is true) is that “it is cheaper to keep an existing customer than to the find a new one.”

So the question becomes … how do I gain this marketing intelligence information? Part of that answer should already be in place. It involves listening to your salespeople. They are the ones closest to the customer. Still, that information has to be verified. Why? I have yet to meet the salesperson who believes that product/service prices are low enough. A low price argument, coming from a salesperson, is only relevant when A. it is True, and B. you have done everything you can from a marketing perspective to justify the price to your customers. Things that should be absolutes in your company:

1. You don’t want the lowest price if you have the best product.

2. A price that is too low may be perceived as an inferior good.

3. A low price argument is most often an indication of lousy marketing, communication and training. Do your salespeople know the product or service advantages—can they prove value to your customers? Have they had serious sales training? Just saying “we are the best” doesn’t cut it.

4. If you have exhausted your marketing options such as branding, service bundling and adjusting your elasticity coefficients via marketing programs and you haven’t made the mistake of having multiple people setting prices for your company (your customers will go to whoever gives them the best deal)? Please tell me that you’re not allowing the salespeople to set prices! Unless there is an emergency, there are many marketing ideas that should be employed before you just lower the price with a knee jerked “lower price” reaction.