Hey, Everybody! Let's Sink the Ship Faster!

The economy is slowing down, the housing market almost to a stand-still.

Some people blame the government, but like the selling frenzy that comes upon a falling stock market, the fault really lays with the same people who can reverse it.

Here's the way it works: Sales begin to fall and companies (especially small companies) react like a dieter on the Atkins diet: the start trimming muscle before they trim fat.

"Muscle" for a company is marketing. Imagine a healthy body from the bones out... a company begins with an idea (bone marrow) and develops a business plan/infrastructure (skeleton). They only way to put flesh on the bones is to advertise and promote the business (muscle). They run lean and mean until the customers start buying. Through poor management, this is when a company begins to lay on the fat. Procedures aren't refined and toned, people are hired who aren't up to the job, unprofitable product lines consume resources...

...and when sales drop the first thing - THE FIRST THING - cut is MARKETING. Not the fat. Efficiency should be picked up, jobs refined - and if necessary, terminated - and emphasis on high profit items should be targeted.

Certainly marketing should be looked at and like so many things, boundary may fuel innovation (I have a client who produced beautiful brochures, but sales were dropping so he switched to cheap fliers stuffed in a plastic bag with a rock to weigh it down, which he threw into people's driveway. While it annoys some people, his guerrilla campaign WORKS). Get creative, but don't stop.

Take a clue from the big boys who increase their direct mailing when sales are down. They offer incentives because a slightly less profitable sale on a high profit item is better than no sale.

Drop fat, not muscle, or you'll sink faster.