On a call the other day I had someone comment they were the “incredible shrinking company”. Although a few industries proved to be recession proof, most of us had to take a hard look at our business and make significant changes to ensure sustainability.

I value old sayings like “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” and “Necessity is the mother of invention”. The immediacy of shrinking business revenues forces us to take the actions necessary to get our business back on track. And for the majority, it’s been a dramatic transition from where we were just a short time ago.

From my experience and listening to the views of other business owners and managers, there are 10 basic fundamentals that most agree on.

1. If you don’t love what you do develop an immediate plan to get out, however painful.
2. If you used to love what you do but are in a “recessional funk”, do a reboot and reenergize with a clear vision and action plan complete with time lines and task champions.
3. Communicate your concise vision to your entire team and for those who don’t get it in a timely manner, politely suggest a new and exciting career path for them …outside your organization.
4. Address every hurdle keeping you from achieving your goals and take action, take action, take action!
5. Treat your people, customers and suppliers like they matter most.
6. Fine tune your menu of services through the “good to great” criteria. What are you passionate about? What are you best at? What gives you the best economic return? You need all three firmly in place for the best results.
7. If you are a generalist, fully understand this “convenience sell” from a customer perspective and make sure you have conquerable levels of quality across your diversified service mix. Good execution of one can win you another. Poor execution of one can cost you everything.
8. If you are a specialist, make sure your niche offering is still relevant. Sometimes a recession causes a slowdown that a recovering economy corrects and sometimes there is a permanent swing that doesn’t swing back.
9. There are many new ways to reach your existing and future customers. Experiment and assess what works best for you.
10. Make sure your product is solid, your message is compelling and you assign the proper resources to deliver it to your market with clarity, consistency and confidence.

Lee’s Quote for the day:
“If you always start with your toughest task first, the rest of your day can’t help but get easier”

Tiger Woods' new Nike Ad

Move on to America’s sweetheart Sandra Bullock who wins an Oscar and 1 week later finds out her husband has been cheating on her. Okay what are your expectations when you marry a biker with a name like Jesse James and as many tattoos as former stripper girlfriends. Sandra was totally “blind sided” but from a marketing perspective their careers will both benefit from the additional exposure.

Let’s move on to marketing and our particular niche in Canadian transportation. Most transportation companies stopped marketing to any degree at the precise moment their numbers started plummeting with this past (we hope) recession. Layoffs, salary cutbacks and parking equipment were commonplace. Some faired better than others but essentially everyone had to look hard at how they could stop the bleeding and most put marketing budget cuts at the forefront.

Fast forward to a slowly recovering Canadian economy. If you turn on the taps now how long will it take to see any measurable benefits? Compare that to waiting till the economy recovers and then start advertising…

Based on material we’ve researched and the effects of our own marketing push (starting last June, 2009) we would say 9 months minimum is a reasonable expectation to see results from renewed advertising efforts. Few have the resources or faith to advertise in a still limp economy, so those who do will stand out and be top of mind with potential customers. During past recessions statistics show those who kept advertising grew 256% faster than those who cut or stopped advertising. It might be fair to speculate (based on this information) that if you wait for the economy to fully recover it may take you 256% longer to gain ground. Thus 9 months becomes 23 months of equivalent advertising spend before noticeable results are produced. Therefore you should spend 2.5 times less overall if you start advertising now versus waiting or a full economic recovery. Comments?

Relationships are critical in a B2B environment. It’s how we have and will continue to endure. We can never become complaisant or take them for granted as they are vital to our success. The way we initiate new opportunities and gain the trust of future clients is however changing and we need to keep pace with this evolution or face further revenue decline or extinction.

Since June of last year we have been fairly aggressive in promoting our company. We’ve issued press releases, had articles published in major magazines, used direct mail, poly bag insertions, e-mail campaigns, personal letters, testimonial campaigns, networked at industry functions, launched a new site, hired additional creative talent, cold called, implemented search engine marketing, utilized Google pay per click ads, put a video on Youtube, created this blog and networked through other available social media such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

We’ve done this so that we could knowledgeably recommend the most effective marketing methods to use for our B2B clientele. The answer is that in a cautious economic climate the results are not immediate. No single effort stands out as producing noticeably more results than another and patience is indeed a virtue.

What we have discovered is that through these initiatives we are increasingly staying top of mind with our market. We have been successful in getting asked to participate in more Requests for Proposals and have been successful in winning those requests. It has made us refine our capabilities presentation and dig deeper into what makes us a valuable resource for our customers. It has built our confidence. It has heightened the resulting service we can provide…all good things.

So today when a customer asks us to update their website and they see it as the sole answer to their lethargic sales we have to tell them “It’s just one more arrow in your quiver, one more spoke in your wheel, one more link in your chain.”

Although we truly believe the web is your number one marketing platform, today’s answer is an integrated approach across all media types. It’s being more customer centric and less chest pounding. It’s saying what we do best, what we stand for as an organization. It’s selling one idea at a time that resonates with your target and can be backed up and fully supported.

There are no short cuts or quick fixes. It’s being focused, deliberate and consistent with your message and your commitment to speak to the needs of your clients today. It’s knowing your business and your customers, so you can present solutions their current vendor or in-house experts couldn’t imagine. To quote the favourite line of our new senior creative, Sam Cockcroft, “…it’s blending out not blending in!”

Too many companies are still professing they are the one stop shop, or one call does it all, or the single source solution. We’re not buying it anymore and neither are your prospective customers. There is nothing unique, memorable or compelling about that message. And 99 times out of a hundred it’s just not believable, so you miss opportunity after opportunity…maybe without even knowing.

It’s still tough out there. We are all working harder than ever. Though it takes time to see the benefits, marketing can help. If you have the resources to advertise and you deliver the right message, you will rebound quicker doing it now then waiting till the economy fully recovers. History has proven it. It’s the approach we’re taking and the approach we recommend to our B2B clientele.