This morning Meredith Vieira of the Today Show interviews Matt Miller, the CEO of the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) and Barbara Lippert, an Ad Critic from “Adweek” Magazine.

The interview goes on to talk about this year’s Superbowl Advertising and points out a few interesting ideas from a marketing perspective. Superbowl ads are running at $100,000 per second.

My only question is this:  Is it possible Lippert could let Miller finish a sentence?  See for yourself…

Just when I thought all my i’s were dotted and t’s crossed, my small business web host pulled the rug out from under me.  It seems that Yahoo! converted my Arial Font (web friendly text) to Calibri Font (not uniformly web friendly, but does look nicer, I’ll admit!).  That resulted in some text overflowing into non-text areas, overlapping and general disarray on the odxFusion  site.  If your workstation doesn’t recognize Calibri font, you saw the mess.  What a way to promote your Web Development Firm!

Most visitors probably had no issues with viewing odxFusion.com, but the problem is at least one did (thank you for letting me know Sarge!).  And I’m sure for the one that did advise me, there were a few that didn’t find it in their heart of hearts to tell a poor old webmaster.

Luckily, “Sarge” is probably not a prospective client for me.  You see, he does a little web work himself.  That said, I truly believe that he let me know of this morning’s issue, not because he cares about me or my business, but because he wanted to bust my chops.  He can be a real joker sometimes…  He and I disagree a lot, but for some reason I keep him around.

Stating that there is a commitment to starting and running a business is a gross understatement. By default, starting and running a business in a down economy could be downright naïve. If there is no money being spent, how can you expect to get your business off the ground?

But let’s take a look from a different perspective – when you start a business in any economy, you are often not profitable for quite some time. You stay in the red until you’ve developed a following and gotten the word out that you are a standup company providing some value in your product or service. You might do a direct mail campaign with some level of success. You may offer short term discounted rates. Heck, you may even GIVE some services away! The point is you spend your time developing new relationships and possibly reaching out to old ones.

Starting a business in uncertain times gives you the opportunity to grow slowly and steadily while creating a good foundation on which to build. Running a business during these times gives you the opportunity to get back to your roots. The question is, how?

Understand that there are many ways to put your brand in front of your customer without giving away the farm. Unfortunately, the initial reaction of many entrepreneurs is to offer deep discounts which can in turn dilute their great product. With a little creativity and an open-mind, you can throw small business instinct out the window.

For example, there is a day spa down the street from my office. Until recently, they were typically busy and kept a full parking lot. In the last few weeks I have seen fewer and fewer cars in the lot; I have also seen reactive discounts posted in their window. To recoup some of their business, their impulse was to reduce prices. But my impression is this: When people are afraid to spend their money on something seemingly frivolous, frivolous is frivolous whether it’s $5 or $100. Knocking ten dollars off will only benefit the people who weren’t afraid to spend their money anyway. The irony is those folks would have paid the full price!

So here is an opportunity for the day spa to get creative and also to connect with their customer. They could offer a free massage class, or how-to make-up session. Maybe give a demonstration on how to use one of the products sold in-store. PEOPLE LOVE FREE!!! And chances are many people will buy a product used in the classes or set a later appointment! By doing this, they’ve bonded with their customer (a customer that will tell friends about the free massage class!), increased sales and set the stage for future business. After all, we won’t always be dealing with a rough economy.

The point is, don’t get down about a lull in business. Get creative and get back to your roots. Now is the time to cultivate your customer relationships. Engage your customer and they’re more willing hand over that precious dollar to you. Can you argue with that?

Think to yourself what ways you can get creative with your marketing and tell us some ways you’ve gotten creative in the past!  Stop by www.odxfusion.com and see us!