Business Coaching

Marketing In A Recession

I will be writing a series of blogs about ways that you need to up your game when trading in a recession over the next month or so.

This will effectively be designed as an entry point for the articles designed to help you to build a stronger business in these tough times, both to point your attention at new articles and also to highlight existing articles that now have a renewed relevance and importance.

These ideas can stop you "getting in to trouble" in the expected recession or help you to recover although, depending on the severity of the issues you may need specialist Business Turnaround advice.

I am starting with a couple of articles that will have a strong visual element in them to help increase the impact.

The first is from the ideas of Jay Abraham will contrast the ideas of using multiple lead generation sources to attract new customers and clients rather than relying on a few.

Power Parthenon Beats The Diving Board

The second builds strongly on Jay Abraham's ideas and concepts for finding hidden profits in a business by turning attention away from the attraction of new customers towards strengthening the relationship and the lifetime value of a customer. But it is John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing who developed the analogy of Hourglass Marketing.

Hourglass Marketing: Building Your Back End

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs       

Jay Abraham Recession Wealth Building Strategy

Overnight an email came in from Jay Abraham promoting his new project - The Ultimate Recessionary, Wealth-Building Strategy which he is promoting through a series of free teleseminars.

This follows quickly on his Golden Nuggets / Brain Trust calls he made a few weeks ago but Jay Abraham is a natural for turning his mind and money-making ability to how to prosper in the recession.

I asked the question "Who do you want to advise you on how to prosper in a recession?" in my review of Jay Conrad Levinson's book "Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times".

Somebody who has experienced recessions and knows what it is all about or someone who only knows the good times?

Sometimes experience counts big time.

What's all it about? Here is a snippet from Jay's webpage.

"I call the strategy “The Recessionary Leverage-Impact Power Play” and it allows anyone with an eye for untapped opportunities, underperforming activities or underutilized assets to “leverage - up” everything from the performance and profitability of their business (or employer’s business) to other people’s skills, efforts, relationships, assets, and enterprises."

So I recommend that you take 90 minutes out of your busy schedule and listen to exactly what Jay Abraham has to say. This link lets you find out details about the Ultimate Wealth Building Strategy.

Jay Abraham's proven techniques for leveraging the opportunities that your existing customers provide and then building on relationships provides a natural solution when things get tough.

You may be familiar with many of Jay's ideas but it will be interesting to hear how he adapts established ideas to the recession.

Unfortunately three calls are scheduled but because of time differences from Los Angeles to the UK and prior commitments, I can't make any of them. So if you due listen it, I would appreciate it if you could come back and add a comment to explain what he covered.

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Guerrilla Marketing In Tough Times (sales letter)

My favourite low priced Jay Abraham resource is the MasterMind Marketing System. It turned me into a Jay Abraham fanatic.

How To Profit In A Recession

If you are gloomy about all this talk of recession then today I have the perfect antidote to help you  to see these tough times as an opportunity and learn how to profit from a recession.

If you think that's a tough sell then I've found just the man for the job, so let me introduce you to Marcus Cauchi of the Sandler Sales Institute® in London. I've been chasing Marcus for permission to re-publish his articles for the last six months. I've now got it and he starts with a blockbuster.

So over to Marcus (and Eastenders is a popular but particularly gloomy soap on BBC1 in the UK).

Why Aren't You Refusing to Participate in the Recession?
A guide to having more fun than watching Eastenders

Inflation, stagflation, depression, downturn, slow down, bankruptcy, liquidation, repossession! I never thought I'd say it, but real life for many businesspeople seems to be even more depressing than an episode of Eastenders.

Ministerial blunders around red tape and blinders around National Security, onerous tax tampering that demotivates small business, the Governor of the Bank of England is gloomier than the Grim Reaper, Alistair Darling has a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp, suburban towns like Camberley are like frontier ghost towns, next stop is Tumbleweed.

Don't You Just Love A Good Downturn?!!

Hasn't this been the best 9 months of your business life?

Your competition are dropping their prices like they can't give their products and services away fast enough. Many are racing towards the liquidator with their eyes wide shut, others are buying business by bending over backwards like a Khasak contortionist and if you dropped a bomb on any hotel in town you'd annihilate about 20% of the entire salesforce and they're licking their wounds over a gin and latte after having been brutalised by the procurement team.
You on the other hand have been steadily increasing your close ratios while more prospects are coming to you and asking you to help them. You're probably raising your prices by 30%, 40%, 50% every Quarter because you've chosen not to play in this recession by falling into the trap your competition has.

You're keeping a tight hold on your cashflow, you are turning down invitations to tender where you have little or no chance of winning because the prospect has already decided who they're going to use or they're so early in their research that they're just fishing for free consulting.

Of course you have your 90-day strategic sales, marketing and referral marketing plans in place and you have invested the time you really need to in those relationships which you want to become your closest referral partners.

I know you've gone back to your clients to ask them what it'll take to lose their business and of course you've done your strategic reviews with each of your coaches, sponsors and key decision makers to explore their plans for expansion over the next 2 years so you can work together to develop your 2-5 year roll-out when they ask you to do so.

Heaven knows you're forward thinking enough to structure the turnover in your sales team so that you're only losing the weakest people and your best people are staying and thriving in your company while all around you are gnashing their teeth, laying people off, eating into their margins, incurring ludicrously high costs of customer acquisition and allowing buyers to treat them as a supplier of commodities not like they treat you ... as a trusted advisor delivering multiples of value each time they work with you.
So what makes you different from the rest of your emaciated, scared and ever so occasionally blinkered competitors?

1. Cash is king.
    
   Get paid upfront, early and often. Keep money in the business. Don't be greedy? Be picky and do business with people willing to pay your fees not the fees they tell you you can have. Make sure you're in profit and protect your time, resources and cashflow like your business depends on it. It does.
    
   
2. Identify the reasons why your customers will pay you premium for what you offer.
    
   Decline generous offers to take on work that will cost you money to deliver. Disqualify hard to avoid wasting your time, money and resources let alone sapping your morale by being led by the nose by tyre kickers, time-wasters, prevaricators, gnomes, lemons and numpties.
    
   Remember not every suspect qualifies to become a prospect.
    
   If they don't, why would you ever waste time developing let alone presenting your ideas for solutions to problems they have, that are costing them a lot of money and you can fix. Instead they want you to tell them how they can fix them without paying you.
    
   Tell me you're not so naive as to believe they'll feel morally obligated to bring you in to help them and pay you what you're worth once you've let the baby out with the bath water?
    
3. Charge what you're worth and do it with conviction.
    
   If someone discounts they tell the buyer "I didn't really think it was worth that much" and they train the buyer to think "Well she dropped her price once, I wonder ..... what if I say "it's still too expensive" again will they discount more? How often can I ask for a discount before they stop giving me concessions and price breaks? Actually I'm nervous now; they've gone so low I get the feeling they NEED this order. Can I smell fear and despair on them? I think I'll go somewhere else but if I keep pushing I can use their lowball offer and free ideas to beat up the next salesperson I speak to."
     
4. Take all the money not just a fraction of it.
     
   I was with one division of a major global company recently and learned to my horror that they are usually only selling 1 product when they have a portfolio of products that mean the salespeople are guilty of "selling and running".
     
   Chances are they're order taking and only talking about the stuff within their comfort zone because they're too ignorant, idle or scared to discuss why the customer should buy the dozen of so other services and products they offer.
    
   No cross selling, no upselling, no strategic account development, no effort to spot the potential of an account on the basis of their paltry wallet-share.
    
   And the arrogance of account managers who for 3 years have been lucky to hit 60% of target (and still keep their jobs ..... he says shaking his head in utter disbelief) in treating marketing's efforts to analyse and understand sectors, lines of business and individual accounts that show genuine growth potential - and the account managers telling marketing they know all they need to know about these accounts!!!
    
   What's needed is a good pile of Semtex, a detonator and some lubricant!!
     
5. Ask for and take the help that's all around you.
    
   You need your network more than ever now. Take the time to invest in the key relationships that will help you thrive in the nasty recession that lies ahead.
    
   Keep your head. Even stagflation means rising prices while the economy remains stagnant. i.e. Germany Plc continues to have a GDP of €30 trillion with inflation running at 8% or UK Plc has a GDP of £27 trillion with inflation running at 18%. Yes credit is tighter so run checks before you incur costs but €30 trillion in sales are still happening and £27 trillion are still happening.
    
   People are still buying (only they may not be buying from your competition .... or you). Money is changing hands, transactions and deals are being done.
    
   So it's not doom and gloom all around. It is time to really pull out all the stops and make sure you are as good as the promises you make.
    
   Fulfilling on those promises is much easier if you ask for help before you need it not when you have the bailiffs dropping around for a quick cup of tea and a repossession.
    
   Ask for help. Take the help. Apply it. Recognise it. Thank people for their help. Give help to others. BUT QUALIFY IF THE PEOPLE YOU ARE ASKING FOR HELP ARE WORTH ASKING!!
    
   A sales trainer who can't sell isn't much cop to pay money to let alone attention. A telemarketer with no pipeline is probably a waste of space. A marketer who isn't generating automated, regular leads with qualified prospects in their clearly defined target market and who can't tell you who they help and why they are different enough to consider changing to them is probably not someone I'd turn to for advice, or an e-book coach whose e-books don't sell or help them generate enquiries and the SEO expert who isn't at the top of web searches for even difficult and highly sought after key words let alone the obscure ones that someone in Outer Mongolia looked up in 2002 once, is it worth you handing over your hard earned cash or giving up your precious time to listen to their trite advice which either they can't swallow themselves or dare I say it(?), is a lie and never worked.
    
   If these people only managed to take orders in the past when times were good and their stuff only seemed to work because the economy was strong enough to hide their ineptitude ..... RUN! Hang on to your wallets. But flee, quickly!
    
6. Buy from people who are expensive and have a lot of customers.
    
   They are holding firm on their prices because they can. In this type of market there is a run to quality.
     
   It's worth paying for good advice. Bad advice is very expensive even if it looks cheap (value for money or a bargain). OK not everyone who is expensive is good, but it's a pretty reasonable indicator that they're doing something right. If they budge on their price without making you give something back and they discount early, your nose should twitch (a lot).
    
   AND ......
    
7. Your state of mind determines the health of your business.
     
   Sure, your bank balance and order book do to, but if you've already decided you're going to have a hard time ... you're right. If you've decided you have to discount .... you're right. If you expect your sales meeting to be tough .... you're right.
    
   Your state of mind, your self-concept, the subliminal scripts you're running, your need to be liked over your intent to go to the bank, your need to comply instead of respect yourself enough to expect to be treated as your prospect's equal, when you have all these in check and you are able to separate who you are from what you do so you don't take rejection personally and your self-concept is always protected .... all these play a visceral part in you becoming another statistic of economic mismanagement and global recession or being one of the survivors and thrivers who makes it out the other side bigger, leaner, stronger and much much much more profitable.

You pick which camp you want to be in, decide and then pursue your decision with total conviction. This is not a time for half-hearted, half-measures.

Carpe colei!
Regards    

Marcus Cauchi
Sandler Sales Institute® London
Sales Training London
All rights reserved, (C) Sandler Training (SM) and Marcus Cauchi 2008

Thanks Marcus. This is a remarkable article and puts the opportunities from the recession into context.

First I want to pick up on the Sandler Sales Institute® in case you are not familiar with their ideas for sales training which are very different from those advocated by the traditional sales people.

I own "You Can’t Teach A Kid To Ride A Bike At A Seminar" by David Sandler but I always believe that audio learning suits the sales lifestyle so well with all that time in the car so I also own and recommend the Close The Deal audio program from Nightingale Conant which is an excellent and the Nightingale website has audio clips to give you a flavour of the material. It is also very funny.

I want to pick up on a number of things that Marcus has covered.

Pricing is key

The easiest thing in the world to do when times are tough and you are worried about making a sale is to cut your price. You know it and your buyers know it. They also know that your price cut is their cost saving/profit boost.

Cutting prices to stop you going bankrupt could just mean that you go bust even faster. It is tough to resist the pressure but that is where the Sandler system is so effective.

Qualify and focus on quality

Time are tough. Costs are an issue and opportunities are unlikely to be as plentiful as the past but that just reinforces the importance of spending your time with customers who have a strong need for your product or service and are ready to buy now.

If you waste time with the tyrekickers and the "might buy in six months" crowd, while your competitor is with the juicy lead with one hand already reaching for the cheque book, you will miss out.

Marcus is right that even if the economy enters an official recession, we may be talking about a drop of 2% but that still means there is 98% remaining.

Some industries will be more badly affected than others, customers will go through de-stocking exercises and as I explain in the Beer Game, the supply chain can become unpredictable.

Taking The Right Advice

I am fascinated by the fact that telemarketers use email marketing or direct mail to attract my attention. The copywriters who send me a letter that is all about them and not about me and how they can help me achieve what I want. The business consultants who don't have a healthy business. The accountants who don't have any money. The doctors who smoke.

You get the idea. There are people who say one thing and do another and can't demonstrate their knowledge and ability.

"If You Think You Can Or You Think You Can't, You're Probably Right"

A famous quote from Henry Ford that emphasises the importance of how you think.

Prepare for tough times by removing and unnecessary costs but don't see profit erosion as inevitable. As the saying goes "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

Now is the time to step up and improve your skills and really show your worth.

Once again thanks Marcus for a great article that shows with the right approach and mindset you can profit from the recession. I will be publishing more from Marcus soon.

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Stop Fears Of A Recession Ruining Your Business

I have seen plenty of "how to survive the recession" type blog postings appear recently and even written a few myself (see Marketing In A Recession) but today I bring you something different. Rob Robson of Mental Skills Business Psychologists warns of the dangers that people may create their own self-fulfilling prophecy of doom.

Over to Rob and I love the cartoon of the turtle of fear although I do want to protect him:

With all of the talk of recession, it is only natural that it will focus minds on the threat that a downturn might have on your business, but beware of the effect that fear can have on performance.

At times like this, it is easy to get stuck in a mindset where all you are concerned with is the the consequences of recession and the survival of your business. If that happens, you may find that you create a climate where the focus narrows and people are:

• Fearful for their jobs
   
  
• Frightened to take risks
   
• Less open to new ideas and to change
   
• Less able to be creative, and
   
• Unable to have fun at work.

This 'self-fulfilling prophecy' may have negative consequences on performance and create a negative cycle that it is hard to escape from. Here are my suggestions for managing successfully during this time:

1. Clearly communicate your vision and strategy, and confidence that your strategy will lead to long-term success
    
   
2. Avoid projecting or pushing your fears 'down the line'
    
3. Focus on the controllables, and don't let people get carried away with events that are out of their control
    
4. Set out to 'buck the trend' and take sensible risks rather than trying to eliminate all risk from your business
    
5. Try to avoid shelving important change - after all you want to emerge from the recession in the best possible shape - in line with your strategic focus (and communicate how it all fits in)
    
6. Continue to recognise people's effort and contribution ("thank you" never goes amiss), and make sure they feel valued
    
7. Make sure that you find the time and space to allow people to have fun and enjoy their work (make sure you still celebrate success)
    

If, ultimately, your employees believe that you can steer them safely through difficult times, and you don't forget that work needs to be enjoyable, then you should be OK (even if you are privately petrified).

Rob Robson
Mental Skills Business Psychologists

Thanks Rob for letting me reprint your article.

"How Will This Affect Me?"

As an entrepreneur and business owner it is easy to think of the recession if it happens or the tough times that are inevitable, in terms of how you are affected. Whether your business is in a good shape to survive, whether your key customers are still good for their outstanding credit and whether the difficult times will affect your own personal standard of living.

After all if cuts have to be made in your business, most of the time it is the business owner who feels the pinch first.

But What About Your Team of Employees?

They watch the same gloomy TV news as you.

They know that prices are shooting up - higher petrol prices, higher mortgage costs, more expensive food.

While your employees don't know your detailed financial performance (hopefully you do) they see the activity levels in your business - whether the phone rings as often, whether as much normal is going out the door - and hear the rumours about customers, competitors and suppliers fighting for survival.

Your employees have plenty of reason to be worried how these tough times will affect them and their families and it affects the way they live their lives.

You Are The Boss, It's Time To Lead

So it is time for you to step up and show your leadership qualities.

Rob has identified seven steps for you to take to reassure your employees that the situation is under control and that they don't need to be overly concerned about their jobs.

As Rob explains, if you don't provide the leadership and reassurance your team needs to function effectively, you run the risk that their fears become a self-fulfilling prophecy and that hurts you even more than them.

Happy Customers Means You Need A Happy Team

Your business depends on keeping your customers more than satisfied with the service they receive. Your service depends on your team continuing to show that they care about the customer, that they mentally and emotionally involved in their jobs and committed to maintaining high standards.

It is said that the overwhelming reason why customers desert one supplier and move to another is because customers are treated in an apathetic way and they believe that the company does not care and is not interested.

You may hear that price is the cause of the defections from your business but independent research has shown that in 68% of occasions it is lack of customer interest and care. Price is just an easy excuse but if the relationship is good, happy customers will give you a chance to get close enough to the lower bid. They don't want to take risks for a small saving.

You may find it difficult to believe this "apathy to customers" reason so I'd like you to do a little exercise.

Think back to some of your purchases, for work or pleasure and look at why you switched suppliers.

Did you change accountants because the new one is 10% cheaper or because you became so frustrated with having to keep chasing the old accountants for information you needed to manage your business or meet your fiscal responsibilities?

Did you stop going to a regular restaurant because a new one opened up that was 15% cheaper or was it because a waiter was so rude and insolent you got mad?

Leading Your Team Out Of Depression

In economic terms we can't be sure what the future holds - tough times yes, recession maybe, depression I don't think so.

But your staff can ee all the signals and become extremely worried and depressed. Stress comes from uncertainty.

There is no avoiding it.

If the recession really bites, you may have to lose valuable members of your team. It's a horrible thing to have to do but it's often necessary to make tough decisions in tough times to protect the wellbeing of the majority.

As Mr Spock said in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

So yes you have to be realistic, face up to issues and communicate honestly and fairly but the more you follow Rob's seven steps for managing your team during these tough times, the more likely it is that it will be your competitors and not you who have to make those difficult decisions.

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times - 4.5 Stars

I bought  the ebook "Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times: How To Steal Customers From Your Competitors In Tough Times" by Jay Conrad Levinson some time ago but it is becoming increasingly relevant as it is clear that the economies in the UK, the US and most of Europe will be in for some very tough times in the next year or two.

Take Advice From Those Who Have Experienced Recessions

The UK has recorded fifteen years of unbroken growth since the 1990-92 recession but only yesterday Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank said that the UK faces the most difficult challenges for twenty years.

I still don't think that people are facing up to just how bleak things could get as most economic forecasts are saying that UK growth will slow but not fall into recession. I fear they are wrong.

Many businesses have only known this golden period of growth and I know from bitter experience that they could be in for a bitter shock.

So it makes sense to take advice from someone who has experienced a few recessions so step forward seventy year old Jay Conrad Levinson.

Even more it makes sense to consult a man who has been advising small businesses on how to use low and no cost marketing weapons for the last twenty five years.

This is the very essence of Guerrilla Marketing which uses time, effort and imagination to replace money in the marketing of a business. I particularly like "imagination" since time and effort both have their downsides.

Guerrilla Marketing recognises that resources are scarce and it maximises its impact by tightly targeting the concentration of effort on where it matters most and emphasises the importance of consistency in everything you do.

Guerrilla Marketing has never been more relevant and the book "Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times" is an essential purchase.

Let me explain why.

Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times - Contents

1. Chapter 1: Tough Times Don't Have To be As Tough As You Think
    
2. Chapter 2: The Importance of Stressing Value
    
3. Chapter 3: Using Consent Marketing Now More Than Ever
    
4. Chapter 4: Free and Almost Free Marketing
    
5. Chapter 5: Mining Your Customer List For Fun and Profit
    
6. Chapter 6: Community Involvement During Tough Times
    
7. Chapter 7: Attracting New Business During Tough Times
    
8. Chapter 8: The Importance of Service During Tough Times
    
9. Chapter 9: Making Yourself The Talk Of The Town
    
10. Chapter 10: Online Marketing In A Shaky Economy
     
11. Chapter 11: The Freebies That Lead To Serious Profit
     
12. Chapter 12: Getting Extra Mileage From Your Marketing and Email

The chapter titles nicely summarise what "Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times" covers so I just want to pick up on a few themes that are covered in the book.

Tough Times Are A Poor Excuse

The easiest thing would be to use the difficult times ahead as a ready-made excuse for poor performance and a justification for not taking action.

Don't fall into this trap. It could be a very expensive mistake.

A guerrilla knows that opportunity lies in tough times.

When people have a problem, they need solutions.

When people have a big problem, they need big solutions and customers are more prepared to spend to cure a pain than to chase after a gain - see Using Pain To Sell.

The future prospects for your business depend on you taking the right actions, stripping out unnecessary activities and costs that don't add value (See Difficult Decisions Made Easier for more details) and focusing in on targeted opportunities.

There Is Gold In Your Customers

This is an idea that you will keep hearing from me but I know that there are big profit opportunities sitting in your existing customers (if you are like 90% of businesses).

It's so much more exciting chasing the new big deal but by focusing on improving your policies, systems and methods for re-selling, up-selling and cross-selling I am sure that you can make much more money concentrating on the prospects who already know and trust you.

Cheap Is Often Expensive

There will be pressure on you to reduce your prices, both from your customers, your competitors slashing their prices and your own desire to give your sales volumes a boost but I want you to remember this simple slogan:

Cheap is often expensive and in tough times, you can't afford to waste money.

You know it already.

Pay a low price and you often get cheap tat but pay more and buy quality and you get something that provides lasting value.

It doesn't always work but price is often a good guide to quality.

Take business advice for example.

Do you want an adviser who costs you $50 an hour or Jay Abraham at $5,000 per hour.

OK Jay may be a bit pricey but I know because he's told me, Scott Hallman's coaching work is booming at $1,250 per hour. Why? Because his clients make many times that money back from the ideas and clear implementation guides he gives them.

Permission Marketing Matters More Than Ever

During tough times, people will concentrate on key relationships from people who have proven they can be trusted.

This emphasises the importance of regular customer focused content (not self serving sales pitches), providing great customer service and improving your referral strategies. You may not be in someone's tight trusted network but a recommender might be.

Give Before Receiving

If you are dealing with a new prospective customer, what better way to demonstrate your value and why you are different by giving - it may be helpful information, a free trial, samples or anything else that can strengthen the relationship and put the prospective customer in a position where they have gained from contact with you.

In all my dealings with clients, prospects and visitors to my website and this blog, I work hard to make sure that they gain from their contact with me."

The subtitle of "Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times" is "How To Steal Customers From Your Competitors In Tough Times" and let me give to you.

If you pop up to my newsletter form at the top left, there is a sign up page for my newsletter. This gives you two free reports:

1. Marketing Secrets for Small Businesses - this is a primer of Jay Levinson and Jay Abraham's ideas for marketing
    
   
2. How To Win Profitable Customers Away From Competitors - the content is very different from "Guerrilla Marketing In Tough Times" but the intent is the same and I have been told by a rival business adviser that I should be charging at least £10 for it but I'm a guerrilla marketer - I give it to you free just so that you gain from contact with me.

My Review Rating for "Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times" 4.5 Stars

I like to be stingy when I review books and a five star book has to be exceptional.

The Fourth Edition of "Guerrilla Marketing" had my top five star rating but I've knocked half a star off for this one. The 4.5 star rating is a strong buy recommendation for "Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times."

The content is excellent and the book is well written but "Guerrilla Marketing" is a big book while this one is short.

You could argue that's an advantage. It is certainly tightly edited and there is no waffle or superfluous words.

I like books that focus on turning knowledge into action and this book ends each chapter with exercises and action steps but I did find myself wanting Jay Levinson to tell me more.

I guess this is a problem when you have so many books, You can't keep on repeating content because people would get bored but as I was reading I found myself looking back to Scott Hallman's Small Business Growth Club and thinking "Scott tells you exactly how to implement that idea."

Who Should Read "Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times"

Jay Levinson writes for the small business owner and while he has authored or co-authored many books (with total sales exceeding 15 million copies worldwide), each is standalone and doesn't require knowledge of the other Guerrilla Marketing books.

It is not a technical read so owners of small/medium sized businesses should read, as should  people employed in sales and marketing functions.

Tough times do create unusual pressures and the book is a great way to hone your thinking.

I also believe that anyone who advises businesses needs to read "Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times".

Remember A Guerrilla Is A Giver

I like the book very much but you may think I am biased because I am a certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach and it is certainly true that I buy into the ideas and ethos of Guerrilla Marketing so why don't you try it for yourself.

Pop over to the sales page of "Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times" and sign up to get the first two chapters for free. Then you can judge for yourself whether you want to pay to read the rest of the book. I believe you will.

So let me end with a couple of quotes from the book

"Times may be tough for others - but tough times are golden opportunities for guerrillas"

and

"Even in the toughest of times, patience and persistence will pay off richly."

Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times Program

A few months ago Jay Conrad Levinson put together an eight week coaching program called "Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times". While the program has finished, I found this video of Brad Sugars interviewing Jay Conrad Levinson about the program and marketing in tough times which is worth watching although the sound quality isn't great.

The Guerrilla Marketing Association is also highly recommended.

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Competition and the Survival of the Fittest

I am just back from my safari holiday in South Africa and Botswana and while I tool my mp3 player loaded with Jay Abraham, Peter Thomson and Brian Tracy recordings, I didn't even turn it on and I just read a couple of chapters of a marketing book I took away.

Margaret and I had a great time despite the 5:30 am wake-up calls and saw many animals and birds including six new species of mammals which was great considering this was our sixth safari based holiday.

But I don't think that anything brings home to the nature of competition to you more effectively than seeing the animals in their natural habits.

The Difficult Life of A Male Impala

For the impala, it is the rutting season which is highly stressful for the males. Yes when they get to the top of the pile, they get to have their wicked way with lots of impala girls but between keeping the ladies happy and keeping other males away from their mates, they don't have the time to eat.

The result is that they quickly lose their strength and are knocked off their perch by another male impala who has been conserving energy.

Now our first male impala is banished from the protection of the herd and slinks off into the bush to recover. Outside of the rutting season, the males form bachelor herds for their own protection. Twenty eyes looking in every direction are better than just two but in the rutting season, they are on their own.

They need to do two things desperately - eat and sleep - but both activities put them at risk of becoming food for the hungry lions, leopards, cheetahs and hyenas.

Their very success in rising to the top and claiming their rewards has put them in mortal danger and strangely it can be like that in business as well.

Often the seeds of failure are sowed from continuing a successful strategy too long. A business can feel it has become invincible and that opens the door to complacency. When you are successful, you become the target for others.

The Fight For Food

It's late autumn in the Southern hemisphere and in the reserve in Botswana, it's now four months since the last rains and the grass is short and parched. Rivers running through the reserve are mainly dried up but the next rains won't come until late September or October so in the next four months, it is going to become much more difficult to find the food and water the animals need to survive.

It becomes an issue of eating what you can find and hoping that you have built up enough reserves of fat to last you through the lean times.

This made me think about businesses who are facing the difficult times from the expected recession. New revenues will be more difficult to find as businesses compete for the lower disposable income of customers.

So have you built up enough resources to help your business survive the tough times ahead?

Or do you need to start implementing survival strategies urgently?

In the good times, the elephant herds can be large because the bush can support them but as conditions get tougher, the herds start fragmenting into smaller and smaller groups and spread out.

So have you identified your core markets and customers who can help you to survive the recession?

It Is The Survival Of The Fittest

Whether it is in the African bush or in business, competition is a question of who is the strongest and fittest.

If you haven't started your fitness program you, then I urge you to start.

To Your Success

Paul Simister

Your Profit Coach, business coaching for the customer focused entrepreneur

© Planning & Control Solutions Ltd 2007-2008 All Rights Reserved

Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit - Simpleology

Over the next two weeks or so I will be testing and reviewing the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit from Mark Joyner and Simpleology.

I am taking longer to go through this course than the seven days because;

a) my business is not in a crisis so the program is not my highest priority

b) I am having to write the reviews as well as work my way through the materials and

c) I don't want my blog to be taken over completely by the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit in particular or business turnaround in general.

Scary Times Could Be Ahead

Each year tens of thousands of small businesses in the UK fail and many more struggle to survive while operating at little more than a subsistence level.

Working harder, longer hours for less money seems to be the curse of many entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses.

But I am gloomy about the UK and Western world economies for the next eighteen months. With disposable incomes down and credit more difficult to find, consumer spending has to reduce.

If it is tough to build a sustainable business in the good years, just imagine the problems there will be in a recession.

This will be my first recession with my own business, even though I have been trading for thirteen years but I remember the 1990-92 recession when I was a senior manager of a much bigger business. I told the story in Business coaching in a recession.

I had never seen profit fall out of a business so quickly. We had a six month swing from making £100k profit per month to at the worst stage losing £90k in on month before employee termination costs and other restructuring.

A Time Of Unbelievable Pressure & Strain

If you find yourself in the situation where your business is failing and it may only have weeks to survive and recover, you will know just how much pressure and stress you can face.

Often it is not just the business at stake.

Business loans are secured on personal assets like your house.

Business worries become personal worries about how you can provide the basics for your family.

You are scared and confused.

You may have times when you rush around like a headless chicken, starting one task and then another but never finishing any.

But at other times you may be paralysed by fear. Your mind freezes and you can't think straight.

You are overwhelmed by what has to be done but you don't know what has to be done first.

You need help!

You Are One Of Many

It's easy to see your business problems as all your fault and that you are alone.

But many other people are going through exactly the same problems and emotions at the moment.

Some will take action and turnaround their business but many won't. The fact that you are reading this says that you are an action taker who is looking for guidance.

That's a great start to rescuing your business.

The Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit

I want to introduce you to the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit from Mark Joyner and Simpleology.

It could be just what you are looking for to provide focus and clarity to your actions so that you do what is necessary while you still have a chance to save your business.

You could pop straight over to the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit sales letter and read it for yourself or you could carry on reading as I try to highlight some of the important points from the letter.

Mark Joyner Is A Great Copywriter

Mark Joyner is the author of Mind Control Marketing, The Irresistible Offer and The Great Formula and has probably forgotten more about marketing than I'll ever know

but

I think he has slipped up with his headline (although Mark may still be testing and you may see a different headline) so please don't be put off if you read:

"How Does A Full Time 2nd Grade Teacher Struggling To Make $417 A Month Online. Triple It in 4 Days... And Eliminate Worry About Having A Cash Crunch Again?"

My problem is that the headline may not pass the relevancy test for you and you may dismiss the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit without properly reading the copy because you're not a teacher, your problems are much bigger than $417 per month and because you don't market on the Internet.

I believe that would be a big mistake.

Later on in the letter it says about the program:

"It's the same thing a Fortune 500 would do, just made so bloody simple a 2nd grade teacher could do it" and yes, there is a testimonial from the teacher.

I bet your business is somewhere in between the teacher and the Fortune 500 (the largest companies on the US stock market).

The Generic Business Turnaround Process

Whatever the size of your business, there are four things that you have to do:

1. Stop the bleeding - both time and money.
    
2. Stop the stress - move from uncertainty to clarity.
    
3. Inject the business with cash - Mark Joyner's tip is to aim for 2 months of operating expenses to give you time to breathe.
    
4. Refocus the business.

Read the list again.

Doesn't that make sense to you even though you don't know how to do each stage?

That's what a turnaround is and the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit has been developed to help you do it.

Look Who Has The Risk

When your business is in trouble, we both know that you can't afford to take any risks and at the moment you have two major risks:

1. Wasting time when you should be taking purposeful action.
   
   I like the idea that the 7 Day Business Turnaround Lot is intensive but it is designed to be completed in a very short time period. It creates a momentum of its own but it's a manageable amount of time.
    
2. Wasting money you can't afford.
   
   It's one thing buying something as a gamble when you have a stash of cash but I admire Mark Joyner's approach to his marketing of the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit.
   
   Yes you have to surrender your payments details but you get to experience the 7 day program before the money is paid AND you have a 90 day money back guarantee (please check the sales letter - it is correct at the time of writing but these things can change as Simpleology test the offer).
   
   It's also a terrific price if it does succeed.
   
   No downside and virtually unlimited upside.
   
   This is a deal that is only possible because the program is systematised and man-hours have been designed out of it.

The Next Review

If you can wait because your business isn't in crisis, then my next review will appear in a few days time.

If you are already in a crisis but you're not ready to give up the fight until you've had one final throw of the dice, the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit could be exactly what you are looking for.

It's an interesting idea isn't it? Try it, then buy it.

To Your Success

Paul Simister

Your Profit Coach, business coaching for the customer focused entrepreneur

© Planning & Control Solutions Ltd 2007-2008 All Rights Reserved

Related postings:

Business Turnaround: To Thine Own Self Be True - Day 1 facing up to your issues and understanding what is required

Cost cutting in your business turnaround - Day 2, getting your business in order

Business turnaround: Finding your cash injection - Day 3 learning how to generate extra cash quickly

Business turnaround: Generating cash urgently - Day 4 to 6 three fundamentally different approaches to raising cash.

Business Coaching In A Recession Or Tough Times

My mind is increasingly focused on the issues faces businesses in tough times, whether there will be a recession and in particular if any recession will see an increase in the demand for business coaching services.

A Generation Since The Last Recession

In my working life I have had to confront two recessions:

• 1981-82 when I was just starting as a trainee accountant and I saw clients struggling one year and out of business the following year and
   
• 1990-92 when I was Finance Director of an engineering business selling products into the building industry. Ouch!

I have told the story before but it is worth telling again quickly

Business Profit Plummets During A Recession

For about nine months my company ignored all the talk of recession and we continued to generate profits of £100k or more every month. Other businesses in the group were seeing profits fall sharply but not us.

With hindsight we were protected by the lead times in our industry. Buildings started had to be finished but developers didn't need to start new projects.

When the recession hit, it hit us hard. I had never seen such a sudden swing in profitability which equated to about 15% of sales value, from big monthly profits to substantial losses. It only took three months.

We were caught in a pincer movement of rising costs (from productivity issues and production managers who thought it would be a good time to overhaul machines while they were quiet) and falling sales volumes and prices.

   

It was the classic break even point squeeze as shown in the graphic above. Our break even point shifted from BEP1 to BEP2 as our economics moved from the solid lines to the lines of dashes. Each hurt the business and our volume slid leftwards as well to compound our problems. Our sales volumes below the new break even point.

I have explained in the Beer Game, how businesses need to be seen as an integrated system but they also operate in a much bigger system. Sudden changes throw the whole industry system out of balance and take months to settle back down to a stable level.

Three Types Of Company In Recessions & Tough Times

I see three types of companies and how they will face up to the economic pressures of the recession and times of tough trading:

• Company A - prepares carefully for the recession. Uses this time to re-focus the business and comes out the other side leaner, fitter and much stronger.
   
• Company B - ignores the warnings until the business is in trouble (like my employer in the early nineties, we didn't believe anything we couldn't see in our own results and thought that we were a special case.) Company B will suffer a lot of pain adapting to the tough times but will come out the other side as a profitable business.
   
• Company C - ignores the warnings and doesn't have the necessary control systems in place to keep the managers up-to-date with what is happening to profit and cash flow. "Sales are down a bit but things can't be that bad can they?" Many of the C type companies will not survive.

In my chart I have started company A, B and C from the same profit position to make the comparison easier. In reality, company A has proactive management and is likely to be starting from a higher profit position.

As the economy improves, the company As of the world can start buying up the better company Bs on the cheap. Owners of Bs will be exhausted from the struggle and just grateful to have something left from all their efforts.

The critical factors that will determine whether a company is type B or type C are:

1. The skills of the managers, their willingness to seek outside advice and assistance and the desire and ability to make the right decisions backed up with successful implemention of purposeful actions.
    
2. The size of the business problems. A company losing money at the rate of 3% of sales has more chance than one losing money equivalent to 10% of its sales each month.
    
3. The surplus funds available at the start.
    
4. The degree of crisis within the business and the extent to which any decline is clear to outside stakeholders - customers, suppliers and the bank.
    
5. The extent of any competitive advantages the business has and the actions of competitors.

Business Decline: The First Step is Seeing The Problem

Two academics Weitzel & Jonsson researched business decline and developed a stages of decline model.

1. The first stage is that managers are blind to the problems,
    
2. The second stage is a period of inaction as they assess what is happening,
      
3. Third is a faulty action stage where actions are taken but they fail because of inadequate diagnosis,
      
4. The fourth stage is crisis, by which time it may be too late to recover. A firm cannot sustain losses indefinitely and
    
5. In the fifth stage, dissolution occurs and the business is declared bankrupt.

So do you have the performance measures in place to tell you if there is a problem? Can you see that leads and orders are down? Can you learn what is happening further along your supply chain?

Back to my experience in 1990-2, we had official construction industry forecasts which indicated that expenditure was expected to fall year on year by say 10%. But in 1990 we didn't see any reduction and we weren't looking at the fall off in new projects starting. We were lulled into a false sense of security but at least we had the control systems in place to tell us when things started going wrong.

This was in pre-Internet days when market information and news was more difficult to find. Now there is even less excuse.

The third stage is interesting - faulty diagnosis.

It is easy to become confused between causes and effects, problems and symptoms. Waste time treating the symptoms and the problem can get much worse, especially if there is temporary relief in the symptoms.

How Do You Decide What is Happening?

During the assessment stage, the business owners and managers must make causal attributions of the problem to identify where and how to apply a solution.

According to another academic researcher into business decline and failure, Weiner, these attributions will be along three dimensions:

• Are the problems arising from causes internal or external to the firm?
   
• Are the problems controllable or uncontrollable?
   
• Are the problems temporary or permanent?

Using this model yet another academic, Ford argues that the initial attributions are usually external, controllable and temporary.

So here we have the business owner thinking "The problem is caused by the recession but if we just work harder and make more sales calls we can pick up enough business over the next few months while the economy recovers from this short term recession."

Business owners and managers will therefore increase their commitment to their normal business methods.

If the problem is not resolved, Ford argues that the attribution will switch to external, uncontrollable and temporary.

Now the business owner is thinking "It's still the recession doing all this damage but there is nothing else anyone can do. If we just sit this out, the recession will be over soon."

So No One Needs A Business Coach In A Recession?

This "external, uncontrollable and temporary" diagnosis is the exact opposite to the attribution needed to start a business coaching or turnaround consultancy assignment.

For business owners and managers to be motivated to bring in outside help, they must believe that the problem is internal (we must change), controllable (something can be done) and permanent (something must be done).

Let's just go back to the three possible outcomes of companies A, B and C and to save you having to go back up to the top, I'll repeat the graphic.

For company A, who continues to generate profit and cash throughout the recession, this attribution makes sense. Profits may be lower than the business would like but the survival of the business and everything the owners and managers have worked for over the years is not threatened.

The attribution doesn't make sense for Company B and Company C who are losing money.

How temporary is temporary?

Is the underlying industry strong and sure to recover or are industry forces moving against your business? For example is the Internet an increasing force where you are weak (eg music, books)?

The decline from the recession is permanent for any Company Cs. All the spare resources ran out, there was no cash left and the clock stopped ticking.

Are you sure that the problem is external rather than internal?

Are your competitors faring better or worse than you during the tough times?

I am a big believer in competitor analysis and benchmarking studies wherever possible. If you know that a competitor is more profitable than you and is growing faster than you, even if the information is a year out of date, it forces you to accept that better performance is achievable.

Unfortunately it is often impossible to get the underlying results because in the UK and many other countries, small businesses do not have to file detailed accounts in the public records. But you may be lucky. You may belong to a trade association which runs a benchmarking scheme where you can compare your performance in key performance metrics against the best, average and worst performers (by number not name).

Controllable not uncontrollable

Finally I challenge the idea that any performance problem is uncontrollable rather than controllable and I urge you to as well.

As an entrepreneur, you know that you can make a difference. The strong beat the weak and the best win again and again.

I believe that there is always scope for new ideas and that there are always opportunities for improvement.

Performance Problems Are Controllable, Based On Internal Issues And May Be Long Term

Now we are in the right mood for business advice and I'd like to talk to you about the basic three levels of support that are available to help you survive the recession, trade successfully during tough times and come out the other side a stronger business.

The key issue is what you need and when you need it.

The three categories of support for you to turnaround your business and restore it to profitability are:

1. Self help - there is a vast range of books, audio and video programs and training courses where you can learn new ideas to turnaround your business.
    
2. Business coaching and consultancy - this is the traditional adviser relationship where you either learn with the help of a business coach and put the plans into action yourself or you turn to a business consultant who will do the work for you.
    
3. Turnaround managers - these are professionals who specialise in turning around companies outside of an insolvency/bankruptcy procedure and are sometimes called Company Doctors. Turnaround managers will take control of your company and working to your brief, make all the difficult decisions for you and then implement them.

It is the second of these that I will concentrate on but I will give you some pointers to the self help guides.

Self Help Guides To Turnaround Your Business And Restore Your Profits

First three books

Turning Around Your Business - Mark Blayney, a good introduction to business turnaround for a smaller business.

Getting Everything You Can - Jay Abraham, this could open your eyes to many other opportunities for profit (I would have recommended his Mr X book but I believe it will be taken off the market imminently and replaced by a new, much more expensive version.)

Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times - Jay Conrad Levinson, the title says it all.

Programs

7 Day Business Turnaround Kit - Mark Joyner, low cost and a good guarantee from a  highly reputable source (See the start of my reviews Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit).

Small Business Growth Club - Scott Hallman's excellent business growth training with the emphasis firmly on implementation (see the start of my reviews