If you are in business or thinking about starting a business now is the time to make yourself almost recession proof.
Economists are unsure how 2008 will shape up.
There is much confusion and caution on the part of the American public with this controversial presidential election impending.
It doesn't matter if your job appears secure you undoubtedly notice the hesitation on the part of senior management to make significant changes that they would of easily made a couple of years ago.
What does that mean to you? While your competitors are sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what happens, your business should be taking massive action.
An old Chinese proverb goes something like this: Confucius say, Hungry man sitting with mouth open waiting for roast duck to fly in will long wait.
The same is true with marketing.
Many businesses have great ideas and plans, but they fail to take action.
They're waiting for things to be just rightbefore they do anything.
To some extent, that's understandable.
Considering that most businesses especially small businesses are tight for money, they want to make sure their advertising pieces are laid out just right; that the message is clear; that they're getting the very best deal on advertising rates, and that the market conditions are favorable.
Make no mistake, all those things are veryimportant.
But it's critical that we don't get paralyzed into not taking action because of them.
Back when Apple Computer was first getting off the ground, articles were written about how they used the Ready, Fire, Aim approach.
That is, they got a product and it wasn't perfect but they fired and got it out in the marketplace.
Then Apple listened to customer feed-back and made modifications based upon the feedback they received.
Apple then got the product back out there again.
That is so different from the way many small or even mid-size businesses run their marketing campaigns today.
They get an ad, a promotional letter, or campaign ready, then sit back and analyze it for months.
Then they may or may not actually run it again.
What holds them up? Why don't they take a chance? Why not get the ad out there and see what happens?That's what Apple Computer did.
Who knows maybe the ad or promotion will be successful, and maybe it won't.
But they will never know unless they test it to see.
Now I am not advocating wildly spending money and blindly running ads and promotions just to see they will work or not.
You certainly must put some thought into the market you want to target, the message you will send them, and the offer you make to them.
This takes a careful and calculated consideration.
Economists are unsure how 2008 will shape up.
There is much confusion and caution on the part of the American public with this controversial presidential election impending.
It doesn't matter if your job appears secure you undoubtedly notice the hesitation on the part of senior management to make significant changes that they would of easily made a couple of years ago.
What does that mean to you? While your competitors are sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what happens, your business should be taking massive action.
An old Chinese proverb goes something like this: Confucius say, Hungry man sitting with mouth open waiting for roast duck to fly in will long wait.
The same is true with marketing.
Many businesses have great ideas and plans, but they fail to take action.
They're waiting for things to be just rightbefore they do anything.
To some extent, that's understandable.
Considering that most businesses especially small businesses are tight for money, they want to make sure their advertising pieces are laid out just right; that the message is clear; that they're getting the very best deal on advertising rates, and that the market conditions are favorable.
Make no mistake, all those things are veryimportant.
But it's critical that we don't get paralyzed into not taking action because of them.
Back when Apple Computer was first getting off the ground, articles were written about how they used the Ready, Fire, Aim approach.
That is, they got a product and it wasn't perfect but they fired and got it out in the marketplace.
Then Apple listened to customer feed-back and made modifications based upon the feedback they received.
Apple then got the product back out there again.
That is so different from the way many small or even mid-size businesses run their marketing campaigns today.
They get an ad, a promotional letter, or campaign ready, then sit back and analyze it for months.
Then they may or may not actually run it again.
What holds them up? Why don't they take a chance? Why not get the ad out there and see what happens?That's what Apple Computer did.
Who knows maybe the ad or promotion will be successful, and maybe it won't.
But they will never know unless they test it to see.
Now I am not advocating wildly spending money and blindly running ads and promotions just to see they will work or not.
You certainly must put some thought into the market you want to target, the message you will send them, and the offer you make to them.
This takes a careful and calculated consideration.
Source...