No Money Down Marketing Plan

When times get tough, the first things to go are excess expenses those costs that are not absolutely critical to doing business. As your organization braces itself for tough times, how can it boost revenue without breaking the budget? Here are some steps to building your own no-money-down marketing plan.

1. Write a revised marketing plan and execute it.
Assuming you have a plan in the first place, go back and review every element to see how it fits into the current environment.

2. Uncover your opportunities.

Do you have certain products that stand out or other competitive strengths? Look for the opportunities. Check out your key competitors who are weak and whose customers may be feeling uncertain, and respond.

3. Develop new terms and conditions for doing business.
Now is the time to look at ways to exploit your opportunities with new thinking. For example, if your customers may not have the money for inventory, but you know they can sell much more if they have goods in their stores, then work out an opportunity such as consignment. Work out terms and conditions to protect your investment and make it profitable for you.

4. Don't accept "no," "We never did it before" and the big one, "Our systems won't allow it." Just because you have never done it before doesn't mean it won't work. Systems are there to serve the company--not prevent progress. As a leader, you cannot allow "no" or other objections to stand in the way of a program that has great upside potential.

5. Promote your company's major skills.
Your company does certain things very well. Look at your company very honestly and figure out the one or two things you do best. Then constantly promote these to your customers and to your own team.

6. Go back to lost customers.
When business was good, losing a customer may not have seemed important. Now that the market is significantly smaller, the customers who have survived are much more important. All it may take is a simple "we are sorry".

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Source:  John Haskell, aka Dr. Revenue®, is a professional speaker, seminar leader, marketing and sales consultant, and author of Profit Rx. As a former CEO/COO of divisions of Fortune 500 companies and as president of The Professional Marketing Group, Inc., he consistently demonstrates the value of written marketing and sales planning. He helps his clients write and implement marketing and sales plans, and his "Dr. Revenue Marketing and Sales Clinics" results in immediate sales and marketing focus.