With news that retail sales rose 2.7% in August (higher than the 2% increase many experts predicted), many small business owners are breathing a sigh of relief.  Nearly every business blogger has done some version of the “Recession-proof Companies” post, but what many fail to address is how you as a small business owner can translate these successful strategies for your own company. Should you dedicate more budget to online marketing efforts, position your brand differently, or employ several brand building strategies at once? Here’s a look at a few industries that have managed to slide through the past years relatively unscathed by the economic woes plaguing many businesses- and how you can use their secrets of success.

Fast Food

“Fast casual dining” (fast food restaurants) have done well over the past years. The success of businesses that offer lower-priced fare is often attributed to customers’ increasing desire for bargains, which sounds right- until you consider the case of McDonalds, which attributes a same-store sales rise of 2.6% to the launch of it’s McCafe line of espresso and coffee drinks. Conventional wisdom dictates that customers would forgo fancy coffee beverages the more financially stretched they become. But McDonalds turned what could have been a huge disadvantage into a marketing ploy: instead of going out the $5 lattes to save cash, just switch to a cheaper version. The $100 million campaign placed McDonalds as the cash-conscious alternative to Starbucks and other high-end coffee retailers.

Steal this Strategy: McDonalds’s strategy is a great example of turning lemons into lemonade. Even if you can’t position your product as the cash-saving equivalent of a pricier or luxury item, you can probably think of creative ways to turn a perceived hurdle into a successful marketing strategy. Online marketing efforts, pay per click ads, and related strategies can shift customer perception of your product in a relatively short span of time.

Beer

Alcohol is often touted as a “recession proof” product, even though this isn’t entirely the case- “value sector” brands tend to see sales increase or remain steady because drinkers mid-market beverages downgrade to more cost effective alternatives. Brands on the high end, where customer loyalty is the strongest, tend to sustain minimal damage during rough economic times, according to Beer Business Daily. Illustrative of this trend is the case of Chicago brewer Goose Island, which seen an increase in sales of its $8 and up bottles at local bars.

Steal this Strategy: The lesson here is that it can pay to position yourself either at the top or at the bottom of a specific market. Companies that produce niche products or those with a cult following seem to be less likely to lose business to mid- or low-market brands because loyalty is so strong. Building customer relationships can be as simple as offering special promotions to repeat clients or customers, initiating an email marketing effort, or ramping up a social media marketing campaign.

Pharmaceuticals

Medical News Today reports that revenues of pharmaceutical companies actively developing new drugs grew to $89.7 billion last year. Though some have pointed out that pharmaceutical industry growth in the US is “not sustainable” the current numbers show that explosive revenue growth is possible, even in a down economy.

Steal this Strategy: Not all drug companies are making piles of money. The largest profits seem to be reserved for those companies that place the most importance on growth: developing new therapies, obtaining new patents, and bringing new drugs to market. Innovation in any industry is key for long term success, but it can also drive short-term revenue, as well. Now is the time to evaluate growth strategies and get customers excited about new product or service offerings.

Technology

Some of the industries thriving in the recession are easy calls- people always need to eat, and take care of health needs, for example. Success in bargain markets is equally easy to predict. Don’t despair if your business isn’t serving a “steady demand” industry or producing low-cost goods. High-end retailers can also fare well in an economic downturn if they are strategic with sales and marketing efforts. Apple, the stylish innovator that brought the world the iPod, the iPhone, and a whole host of other sleek, easy-interface devices is the perfect example of a high-end brand doing better than expected in an economic decline.

Steal this Strategy: Apple capitalizes on all of the strategies employed by the other companies described: customers are fiercely loyal (even if prices are high), it positions itself as a “better” alternative to existing offerings (PCs, music players, etc.) and it manages to create huge excitement for even less than monumental innovations (iTunes 9). It does all of these things incredibly well. The lesson here: combine your strengths into a comprehensive marketing and sales strategy. Focusing on one technique might work well, but integrating several well-targeted efforts might work even better.

It’s always been a slightly antagonistic cocktail party trick of mine to get a conversation going about a well-known business or technology that I know for a fact is founded by a female entrepreneur and see if the person I’m discussing this topic with also knows this. You’d be surprised how often I wear a smug smirk on my face when their eyes betray them and they backpedal regarding their misconception.

Since, it’s quite a feat to become an entrepreneur in today’s landscape of financial success, people go right back to the glass ceiling conception about businesses. The uphill battle to make a profit out of a start-up has always been perceived as a boy’s club, but there have been exceptions of women breaking through this glass ceiling and planting a flag for female entrepreneurship. Arianna Huffington, Oprah Winfrey, Coco Chanel, Estee Lauder, and Debbi Fields are just a few names synonymous with women and successful businesses. These are, of course, classic examples and might not have the same relevance when you look at today’s business landscape. Can women be entrepreneurs in the world of developing technology and Web 2.0? The answer is still, “yes.”

I’ve mentioned a few times that innovation has replaced imitation in today’s internet landscape. I’m amazed when it’s a shock to anyone I talk to that one of the big Web 2.0 innovations that’s making waves was created by a woman. Currently the following are some of my favorites to point out:

Caterina Fake - formerly founded www.Flickr.com. Currently is responsible for www.Hunch.com which is a site that helps users make better decisions.

Eileen Gittins – responsible for www.Blurb.com which helps users publish their own photo books, cookbooks, and portfolios.

Elaine Wherry and Sandy Jen – responsible for www.Meebo.com which connects multiple instant messaging platforms in one interface.

Gina Bianchini – responsible for www.Ning.com which enables users to create their own social networks.

These are my four favorites because these are four of the more innovative uses of the internet’s current abilities to reach and aid the public in using available technology to its fullest extent. I have to give these ladies credit for not only seeing an opening for a great idea and going for it, but having the foresight to make that idea lasting and successful in this current landscape that has the pitfalls of a rocky financial climate. If nothing else, I also have to congratulate them for making cocktail parties even more fun for me.

One of the reasons that I started my business, MarketGarden, was to help Green Businesses, those that offer green/sustainable products or services, market themselves. Often times these start-ups or smaller companies can not afford a variety of agencies – a marketing firm, pr firm, web developer, and advertising agency – to do so. I wanted to offer all of those services in a more efficient, cost effective way. In order to be true to my mission, I needed to find better ways to market – greener ways, more cost effective ways. Over the last year, I have realized that this balance is not just for Green businesses, but all businesses.

There has been a shift toward global agreement that we must to take more responsibility for the health of our planet and reduce our Carbon Foot Print, but balancing that with building a business and in a difficult economic climate can be overwhelming. That said all of these challenges require a more creative strategy that can benefit from the newest marketing tools. Market smarter (have a good strategy) and have your tactics work harder (lower cost, targeted and more impactful.)

Market Your Business – Use Green Marketing Methods – Reduce Costs, this marketing Trifecta is possible and effective. Here are some tips for you to use to reach your goals.

Direct Mail

• Use a more targeted mailing list. This reduces your list size and increases response rates. You can use the postage savings on more effective creative, possibly variable printing.
• Make sure to purge and update your lists
• Reduce waste by mailing smaller pieces – driving recipients to your web site for more information. This will also reduce postage costs.

Printing - Use green printers such as Greenprinter.com and Printingforless.com that offer green printing solutions and operate their business with a reduced Carbon Foot Print.

Electronic Collateral – Limit your use of printed materials, but emailing brochures and presentations, rather than printing them. This is a huge cost savings. Many retailers offer online catalogs rather than mailing them out.

Invoicing and other communications – Try using email for invoices and statements, once again saving on postage and printing. You can always offer mailed and emailed versions, and let your customers choose.

Websites

• Have your website do more of your “heavy lifting” by posting communication items such as –brochures, annual reports and newsletters, on your site where they can be viewed or downloaded as needed. FTP large documents or information, rather than overnighting them. You can send emails out with links back to your site for more information.
• Spread the word through blogs and social networking sites
• Post videos on your site or YouTube to tell your story show a demonstration of your product or service or provide tutorials.

Need inspiration? There are some great publications and websites out there that showcase unique and effective green marketing campaigns. One my favorites is USPS’s publication Deliver Magazine, http://www.delivermagazine.com/. The site offers white papers, podcasts and case studies as well as a subscription to the publication.

To find vendors to help you with your marketing campaigns, visit Resource Nation’s online business center.

Sales are the life blood of any company. Especially in the early stages, a startup business must sell in order to survive. The primary responsibility of its founders is to deliver growth and increased revenues in order to reach profitability.

Some companies succeed even with slower growth, while others struggle while making faster revenue gains. The reason for this is predictability - the founders achieve what they say they are going to achieve.

When predictability is so highly valued, making more money than forecast may be perceived as being as bad as not reaching stated targets. Companies often increase their forecasts if they are having a better year than expected because they don’t want their year-end figures to be higher than predicted. Conversely, organizations also downgrade their forecasts if things are not going as well as expected. Basically, the executives of the company need to demonstrate that they are in control. This is no different to sales people: they must also demonstrate control over their forecasts.

Each month and, more importantly, towards the end of the quarter, the sales professional puts forward his or her best guess as to where he or she will be in relation to their target when the quarter ends. As part of this prediction they may well also name one or two deals that they believe are crucial to them. These are often, if not always, the largest deals they have.

The data is then taken from the corporate pipeline and fed to the sales manager, who will manipulate it and feed it to the sales director or VP of sales. In turn, the head of sales will manipulate it further and feed the data, as a forecast, to the CFO and CEO. If it is going to be a bad quarter, they’ll be told so.

However, thanks to a chain of manipulation and wishful thinking, the figures at this stage will appear less grim than they really are. This allows the VP of sales to explain that with a fair wind they should just be able to turn it around and make the number.

The psychology of what’s happening is simple. People want to keep their jobs and believe that admitting that they’ll miss their quarterly target is not the best way to do that.

Sales professionals need tools to help them to do their job. Unfortunately, the tools supplied by a company are often for the benefit of the company itself and not to the individual’s advantage. Even then, the tools are rarely fit for purpose and most will not be able to adapt to taking a checks & balance approach.

For instance, the pipeline is used as a management tool to make sure there are enough deals in the right places to meet target. In other words it becomes a reporting tool. These reporting tools are often misguided in their approach to the problem.

A pipeline’s primary purpose is to show you are in control. It gives you the ability to predict the outcome, even if that outcome actually falls short of your sales target. Prediction is only successful when it’s accurate. If you say you’re going to come out at 100% and you come out at 110% that’s not good. It may be good in revenue terms but it’s not an accurate prediction.

Introducing Focus from First Border! Focus is a visual opportunity manager that’s easy to use and even quicker to set up. In a matter of minutes you can input the deals you’re working on now and see how closing them will affect your sales commission. It was made for all for us bootstrappers with limited resources; a copy of Focus is about $200.

Better still, it’s built to let you drag and drop deals within the application to show you how winning or losing any specific deal will affect your target and the resulting commission. With a series of grids that show you immediately the status of each opportunity, you know at a glance which deals are the important ones to work on to make your number and which deals you don’t have a chance of winning. Now you can save valuable time and put more energy into winning those deals that really matter.

The result? More accurate forecasting and maximized sales.

Focus is for those in sales who maintain a portfolio of sales prospects and who would like to simplify the challenge of managing the different priorities presented by the complexity of opportunities.

Focus is a personal sales productivity tool that provides a simple, quick and easy way to help focus on and manage the right opportunities at the right time in order to maximise sales and earnings.

Unlike the traditional corporate tools that are designed to provide benefit to the company, Focus delivers benefit directly to the sales professional.

The simplicity of Focus is the visual way in which the opportunities are managed through the buying process. You can see at a glance the status of your business.

Focus: Dashboard - Visual Performance Indicator

The Dashboard changes when deals are moved. This provides immediate visual and numeric status of performance against target and commission for both the current and potential outcome. If you drag a deal into or out of the forecast you will immediately see the impact it has on achieving target and commission earnings. Scenario planning couldn’t be easier.

Focus has minimum data requirements! Quick and easy updates

The only information required to enter a deal is the customer name and the date the deal is likely to close. All other information is optional. Typically, most people can input all their leads and opportunities in less than 10 minutes. New opportunities can be added in seconds.

If you enter the value of the deal you can use the Dashboard to immediately see the impact that deal has on the outcome of your sales period. Also, further information can be added at any time, but only add further information to those deals that are important. Therefore, maintaining Focus is quick and easy.

Drag & Drop for quick and easy updates

Once a deal is in it is moved between grids by Drag & Drop… making it very quick and easy to move deals around.
Deal Information and Plans - For total control

Focus allows you to maintain full Deal Information and Plans for all your important deals. Qualification questions are built in and work on a traffic-light system for quick visual representation of qualification risk.

Deal Plans help you think through the opportunity by developing a series of questions that need answering. These questions help you progress the deal by highlighting your risk of losing due to lack of knowledge of the deal. By finding answers to the questions you make the deal more robust and increase your chance of winning. Deal plans also make it easy to communicate the status of the deal to others.

Reports - for easy sharing

Focus provides a series of standard reports for sharing of information. The reports can be saved in various formats allowing further changes to be made or adding the information to other documents very easy.

Filters - for easy review & sharing

Focus allows you to filter all opportunities across various criteria. You can filter by Customer, Private or Public deals, Partners, Co-Workers, Teams, Sectors, Close Dates and Sales Periods.

You can also see all the opportunities and with their corresponding deal plans. You may also wish to set up lead generation labels as Teams. You can then view your opportunities by lead generation source and share the progress of these leads.

This is just is just a starting point of all of the things Focus can do. For more go to firstborder.com and read more under products.

Considering that my core focus is building, developing, coaching, and mentoring sales teams for emerging companies, many people ask me what it takes to get sales going. The answer is simple, but all too often the greatest challenge a young company faces. If you just decided your product is ready for market, then take a long hard look at your first sales person. Take a look in a mirror, because it is you.

The problem is, in some cases, you are a website designer, or a programmer; possibly a business man or a finance guru, but a sales guy? You are not the one who gets people to buy. Well wait a moment, because all the efforts you put into your state-of-the-art offering that will change the world will sell itself right? We just have to advertise and the sales ready buyers will flock to our website, phone line, and inbox.

I do not relish being the bearer of bad news, but if you believe the latter, prepare to move back into the corporate world and slip those boots off for good. Someone in the founding group must be a capable sales person, and one who understands the innovators in your field. They have to know how to evangelize your offering without pitching and convincing. No one like this on your team? Then the first thing you should do is get a coach. Then read some books, articles, blog posts, and get ready for another education as you get your degree in selling.

There are some other basics to getting a competitive advantage when selling. First of all, innovators like other innovators, and while you can find many helpful hints on my blog and in other posts, most of my work here will be in sharing how to use Web 2.0 and cutting edge technologies to better sell your products. I hope you find this helpful as we journey through the advances of the 21st century. If you want to have a successful sales team, you have to start by getting some sales.