They threw off the idea of marketing, they didn’t see a need for it. They were in the summer of their business lives and all they could see was the sunshine.

But as the great Jim Rohn says… “Life and business is like the seasons”.

As sure as the sun sets at night and rises in the morning… there has to be a winter. And for many that winter has arrived.

They didn’t want to hear about using sustainable marketing strategies and tactics that would keep them ahead of the game, in winter. They only saw the summer.

Now… some of those companies I have been keeping in contact with have let some people go. Worst still… have closed altogether. The layoffs and closures have been so rapid. But you know I wasn’t surprised.

I’m not saying I have all the answers because I don’t. I’ve been running my own business for a long time, and been in marketing for even longer. I knew there was a winter coming, so I was preparing in the summer. Others didn’t and now they’re paying the price.

Of course, some of those businesses that are suffering encountered situations outside their control and there was very little they could do about it. But there was definately some that had the chance to save themselves, but just couldn’t see what was coming. The warnings were there.

So to survive over the next 12 months what do you need to do? Ramp up your marketing activity. Period!

I’m sure people are working hard now and don’t think they can squeeze in anymore time to work on their business. But I say they can.

• If it means, getting up an hour earlier and working an hour later. Then do it.

• If it means, turning off the TV and resigning your favourite radio or tv show. Then do it.

• If it means working till midnight or the wee hours of the morning. Then do it.

• If it means using your weekends, when normally you would be sitting back and chilling. Then do it.

• If it means doing whatever it takes, to ensure your business survives. Then do it.

The extra time you create to work on your business will have to be time well spent. Testing new ideas and approaches to see what works and what doesn’t is going to be very productive.

Using low or no-cost ideas will be the order of the day. Spending a vast amount of money marketing a business is not needed. Some of the really great marketing approaches cost very little, if anything at all.

Nows the time to seek out those ideas and put them to work for your business… and keep on using them, once they’ve been proven to work.

I was too young to remember, my first recession… I was busy playing cricket, football and riding my bike. I was a child and did what children do.

The second one I do remember… because my house was on the line, bills were piling up and money was tight. Very tight.

I had just purchased my first home and then a few months later, house prices dropped like a stone and I was in negative equity to the tune of £16,000.

The recession of the nineties, I worked harder than I had ever worked before and I survived. I got back that £16,000 and moved to a bigger house.

This recession… I’m working harder now, than I did 12 months ago. I’m getting up earlier (2 or 3 days in the week) but I’m always working longer in the evenings. I’ve relegated my favourite programmes (there weren’t that many anyway) and I’m putting my efforts into finding, using, testing and profiting from low-cost and no-cost marketing strategies. And it’s working!

My brother-in-law called me last week and gave me a brilliant quote, which I loved. It read,(words to this effect) “Does a recession cause businessmen to become more fearfull or… do fearfull businessmen cause recession.” – The Law of Unintended Consequences.

I’ve always been of the mind that if you keep your activity high and that activity is the right activity, you’ll reap the rewards. Just by doing something, you’ll get back something in return.

So what if, from today you found 10 marketing ideas that could work and each one gave you 5% – 10% more than what you’re getting right now, what would that mean to you and your business? Would that enable you to feel a little less fearfull?

I’m not sure about you… but the activity I’ve been putting in, working on little proven ways to generate prospects, winning clients and building my war chest, has been making a difference and I’ll continue doing them… and adding more.

We all need to ramp up our marketing efforts, if we’re to survive and thrive.

But I see a worrying trend developing, where the information I get… is trying to sell me something, more and more often.

That’s fine, we all have to earn money and that is the idea of having a business is all about. But…

Building a relationship with your base of prospects or even existing customers seems to be going out the window. Which is DEAD WRONG!

It’s easy to be drawn in by a very well written online sales letter. What prompted me to post this message was a sales letter I read about a product. On the face of it… it sounded like a must have piece of kit. It was obvious that a skilled copywriter penned it. Or in this case keyed it.

In my mind it was a little miss leading. Why?

Well, some of the ideas being shared are slowing down in their effectiveness. Yes they still work, but not to the extent, they once did. But it made no mention of that. It was like they were just after my money. You have to work harder and harder these days, to seperate a customer from their money, and the one shot deal won’t cut it.

I would have hoped that they were in the business of building relationships and thus down the line, building a more profitable business.

The one-shot, grab it while you approach to building a business has long gone, but these guys, just don’t get that.

So don’t be fooled by what you read, before making a decision, do your research and find out whether what is being shared is actually true. I passed the information I read to a very good friend of mine and online marketing giant.

He told me some interesting things… and I would suggest that you find someone you respect and trust to run things by. That conversation with my friend, got me to stop and think, before taking a financial decision, I may have regretted later.

Over dinner we both commented on how surprised we were by how the financial news had bounced off my small audience of 15. It was great… they weren’t going to let the events of the past week get to them. Bravo!!

It’s true, it you listen to something often enough, you will start to believe it. Yes, it’s the worst financial crisis I can remember, much worst than the recession of the early 90′s. But most pulled through that. In my mind having that same attitude “let’s work through this” approach will be more important now than it was just over a decade ago.

I’ve been working harder these past 4 weeks to keep the momentum going, and think it’ll be the same for many other business owners around the UK. In fact around the world.

Personal Branding is going to be SO important over the next 12 to 18 months. Those businesses who can be clearly identified by their brand in 18 months time will reap a harvest so plentiful… that they’ll think Christmas has come every single day!

It’s going to be that rewarding.

Yes it will take time to achieve, no you won’t become an over night success. And yes… it will enable you to attract more, WIN more and profit more.

For instance… where we dined, was great. It was just as I remembered the last time I was there three years ago. But this time it was MUCH busier. My wife enjoyed the experience. Especially the mix of indian and R ‘n’ B playing in the background. It was a really jazzy place to be that night and I would suspect, if I was there most nights, it would be that busy most of the time. We loved it!

The owner understood, brand. He knows how important brand is and will be for his business. And it was paying off for him. There was a queue to get a table, there was a buzz in the Restaurant.

People are still spending and they’ll continue to spend if they can see the value. Of course many will be holding off the amount they will spend. But what business there is, we’ll have to work a little hard, stay up a little longer and explore a few more ways to win business. One of those should be building your brand.

There’s lots of stuff out there on branding. One is by Peter Montoya – The Brand Called You. It’s really good. It does take a while to get to the meat, but I udnerstand why he takes his time to get to the particular things you and I can do to build our personal brand. He wanted to make sure we get it!

But… I really enjoyed it and… it makes sense.

As I heard the great Jim Rohn say 9 or 10 years ago now when I saw him in Dallas. “Make sure what you finally do is a product of your own conclusion”.

So seek out more stuff on branding and once you’re clear on what needs to happen go ahead and do it. No one person has all the answers, so seek many others who can help you with your personal brand.

Some really interesting things came out of those small articles. Something which was re-enforced in my mind. Being the preceived expert!

If you can position yourself as the expect, by writing books, tip booklets, special reports, white papers, creating audio and video programmes etc… etc. People will start to think you are an expert.

In addition…

Getting up and speaking. Recording your talk and making it available for people to listen to for free. Why free?

Well you could charge for it, but if people don’t know you why would they pay? Giving it away for free, will give the listener, (your prospect) a chance to get to know you, your body of work and a chance to decide whether they want to use you.

I sat back and thought about it some more, and my conclusion was this… I’ll do more of “giving stuff away” and building my profile with niche markets. What’s the worst that can happen? Nothing!

What’s the best that could happen? Propsects will start beating a path to my door. Worth a go isn’t it?

The emails I got were great and they all said they were looking forward to the reports and other goodies I had promised on the night.

I went through the webstats for the page I uploaded and just over half went to the page, half of those people downloaded the material, but only 1 went on to to sign up!

Now I thought, was it the material? It couldn’t be that because, it’s great PROVEN marketing ideas for the owner managed business to increase their sales and profits using no or low cost approaches. Even one idea could make a massive difference.

Was there too many reports and goodies? Did people have the time to go through them all? Could be.

Or was it the format? Would people prefer the content not just in written form but in audio and video?

I must admit I was shocked that not all the people who were there, didn’t take the opportunity.

Had I not gone through the web statics, I would have never known what was going on. Now I have… I can put things in place to change those figures and have more people sign up.

Measuring and managing your marketing efforts is really KEY!

I would have only gone on to repeat a process which doesn’t yield the sort of results I want. How often do you check what’s going on with your marketing?

For some who have an online presence, they haven’t even got audio on their sites let alone video. Here in lies a wondeful opportunity to build relationships with your web visitors.

Pick and run with video on your website idea, you’ll be pleased you did.

Once we kind of sorted out the language barrier, (ish) it was re-inforced, the fact that people buy for the same reasons regardless where they come from.

In the audience, there was a Romainian, Scot, Nigerian and mainly Polish. Fact is, if you can target your marketing messages to the core of what people want, they’ll buy. Period!

Is the credit crunch impacting on your business? If so how?

Also I’d be really interested to hear opinions on whether people think increasing their marketing acitivity is the way to go in times of hardship or whether cutting back is the safest thing to do. Share your thoughts.

With all the social networking sites about… I thought twitter would be a ‘nice thing to have’ as opposed to a ‘essential thing to have’.

As I see how people are using it… I’m beginning to realise how important this tool is from a traffic and marketing point of view.

If you haven’t got an account (it’s free to sign up) get one, even if it’s just to check it out. You’ll be surprised at how good it is.

Twitter

For a business owner or newbie online marketer, it’s a minefield. As a suggestion (because been caught this way) buy one at a time, implement it and go onto the next one. Otherwise, you’ll be forever looking and buying, looking and buying and not getting anything done.

I’ll be putting in my newsletter a section on the best and quickest online and offline marketing tools to run with. The ones which give you the results for the least amount of effort.

Don’t get me wrong, you have to put in the effort… I’ll be reviewing the tools which won’t take you months just to put in place.