Boldly Go

I was recently in Scottsdale pitching my services (marketing, branding, advertising) to a variety of motorcycle dealers from all over the country. My pitch was conducted over a two day period, 9 meetings per day, 40 minutes of one-on-one with the dealership principal. It was an amazing opportunity to survey the triumphs and failures from market to market of businesses using basically the same marketing schemes. Not surprisingly, those that had never used an agency were frustrated with their marketing and further, most of them had no marketing plan to speak of. The theme that came up time after time was cutting of the marketing budget as sales have slowed - an overall trend. I kept replaying the Old Spice commercial in my head, where the guy is in the locker room just after playing basketball and realizing his choice of deodorant matters. “I used to think cutting my marketing budget was a good idea (turns to different camera); DUMB.”

Cutting your marketing budget in a down market is like a NASCAR driver pulling into the grass and stopping if there’s a wreck ahead. Down markets are a car wreck and you should boldly go, maintain levels and use the situation to gain on the field. Now is your opportunity to work harder than you ever have to take the advantage and surpass your competition. Stand on the gas, break from the pack and gain the favor of a segmented and finicky customer base that wants to know why they should choose your brand over another. And everyone loves a winner. So win.

In all of my meetings during the Scottsdale trip, there was only one business owner that walked into my hotel room and really understood the value of what I was offering. Ron Glassman, with his son, owns one of the largest dealerships in the country. Mr. Glassman is near retirement age, comes from the car business originally and has seen every peak and valley our economy has thrown at him. And his philosophy is absolutely dead on: Maintain your advertising and sell your way out of a down market. I can’t express the rush that I got listening to this man explain his point of view. You have to appreciate a man that is basically saying it’s up to a business owner to understand the value of their business is their brand and their position in the market place is directly related to the amount of effort exerted — consistent excellence during the pre-purchase, purchase and post purchase customer experience — to maintain that position. If the guy across the street cuts his marketing in half, your marketing values just doubled and if you have the better brand, the better staff and the better promise, your business just doubled, too.

A down market can be a scary thing, but the truly successful business professionals in any field understand that down markets have consistently produced giant opportunities. Build your brand, maintain consistency and you will have customers for life. Guaranteed.

Sterling Doak is a brand strategist and creative director at Media Directions, a premier marketing firm in Reno, Nevada.