Contact Us

Duct Tape Marketing

Duct Tape Book
Marketing Events Calendar
Duct Tape MicroBlog

Blog Channel Members

Email John Jantsch
About John Jantsch

  • Top Commentators

  • Recent Posts

    Entire Archive

    View by Category

    Cheap Gas Makes You Lazy

    Consider subscribing to my blog's RSS feed. It's sticky

    With skyrocketing gas prices in the US people seem to be doing what they can to save a little gas here and there. My wife and I are hopping on our bikes for grocery runs and walking to the nearby coffee shop. Returning to good, wholesome basics is what we’re doing. Stuff we should be doing no matter what the cost of gas!

    It’s funny but that seems to be the lesson we all need. In times of economic uncertainly people tend to refocus on blocking and tackling, doing the basic stuff you should always do. When the market is rockin and gas is cheap it’s easy to get lazy. Let calls go unreturned, let relationships drift, let the blog posting wither, chase the next new thing.

    The best thing about a slow market is that it slaps you upside the head and forces you get back to basics.

    So, instead of focusing on the external circumstances beyond your control turn your focus to the internal realities within your grasp. Hug your customers!

    • Call five customers just to find out more about how you can help them deal with a downturn
    • Reach out to five potential strategic partners and start a discussion about banding together
    • Visit a local floral shop and send five bouquets of flowers to five referral sources
    • Sit down and write five hand-written notes thanking five people for something
    • Take your banker, accountant and five suppliers out to lunch to talk about ways to cut expenses

    And. . . go pump up the tires on your bike.

    Share and Enjoy:
    • Digg
    • Sphinn
    • del.icio.us
    • Facebook
    • Mixx
    • Google
    • Reddit
    • StumbleUpon
    • Technorati
    • TwitThis

    Posted by: John Jantsch on Jul 03, 08 | 7:07 am
    Category: Entrepreneur, Financial Management | Tags:


    Comments

    This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at Jul 03, 08 | 7:34 am and is filed under Entrepreneur, Financial Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

    16 Comments so far

    1. Margie Zable Fisher on July 3, 2008 Jul 03, 08 | 7:37 am

      So true! Just talking about this! We should always be working hard to save money and get business, but when gas prices rise, we focus more on this.

      Margie Zable Fisher
      http://www.zfpr.com

    2. JudyAnn Lorenz on July 3, 2008 Jul 03, 08 | 8:15 am

      The good old list! We can make more of our trips and avoid the expense in both gas and time by making a list/agenda for them.

    3. Mark Truman on July 3, 2008 Jul 03, 08 | 8:57 am

      I see a downturn every summer anyway, as it’s out of season for my business. We are working doubly hard because of it!

      I really think I’m going to look back on this summer 2 years from now and know that it was when we took our marketing from Copycat/Ostrich to Sticky!

    4. Scott on July 3, 2008 Jul 03, 08 | 8:58 am

      You;re right. Why is it all of a sudden the big topic is conserving fuel and running more efficiently to save money. These were always good ideas. Seems as though tight economies magnify the ideas that were always good ideas.

    5. Chad on July 3, 2008 Jul 03, 08 | 9:05 am

      Those are great tips, especially beginning the 2nd half of the year.

    6. Lacy on July 3, 2008 Jul 03, 08 | 9:35 am

      These are great tips. I think making your vendors / suppliers / and customers feel appreciated goes a very long way. A simple thank you note, like you said, can do just the trick.

    7. Gary S. Hart on July 3, 2008 Jul 03, 08 | 9:48 am

      John,

      Thank you for your inspiring and practical posts.

      Happy Independence Day everyone!

    8. LindaBusiness on July 3, 2008 Jul 03, 08 | 10:23 am

      I especially like the handwritten note tip. I’m also an artist and I handpaint thank you notes, which when accompanied by a handwritten note inside, really makes an impression. So much of our correspondence anymore is through email. I recently received an overwhelming response to one such note that I actually hand-delivered to a business office. Being personal is something we must always remember to do as well as making full use of technologies. Great post.

    9. Paul Simister on July 3, 2008 Jul 03, 08 | 11:35 pm

      When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

      Yes things will be difficult but that makes it even more reason to focus, engage our brains and take highly targeted actions.

      Customers are still buying.

      Not as much maybe. A little more price conscious maybe. Less inclined to make impulse purchases maybe.

      Customers become more quality conscious and more afraid of making a mistake. So the move is away from hype and towards education marketing, which calmly explains what the benefits you will get and what you have to do to get them.

      I am talking more and more about how to survive and thrive these tough times on my business coaching blog.

      I’m not saying it will be easy but effective marketing is more important than ever.

    10. Hendry Lee on July 4, 2008 Jul 04, 08 | 12:43 pm

      It is so easy to forget about those little things although they can certainly make a difference to our business.

      Those 5 tips should get our mind going with more ideas. I already got a few from the comments.

    11. Damon Clifford on July 4, 2008 Jul 04, 08 | 9:41 pm

      These are good. The trick will be once everything starts picking up again, to remember these things and keep the momentum going.

      People seem to forget with time…

    12. Cath Lawson on July 6, 2008 Jul 06, 08 | 8:18 am

      John - This is an excellent point. Everyone has got too used to hopping in their cars for the shortest of journey’s. We’re now doing a lot of what our bodies were designed for - walking.

    13. Muvar on July 6, 2008 Jul 06, 08 | 4:32 pm

      Very true! I have definately become less lazy as the gas prices rise. A bicycle is the way to go these days!
      Rgds
      Muvar

    14. Jodi Kaplan on July 7, 2008 Jul 07, 08 | 7:32 am

      Great list, John.

      I started using the thank you idea a few months ago (thanks to reading an article by Andrea Nierenberg), and it works really well.

      Jodi

      P.S. No bicycle for me, but being in NYC no gas either. :-)

    15. Jackson Marketing on July 8, 2008 Jul 08, 08 | 1:29 am

      Perfect post for the current economic climate we are living in! I’d also suggest this is the perfect time for businesses to look at their on-line operations and ensure that their web-sites offer an exceptional customer service. Attention to detail will be rewarded by sales, customer loyalty and even word-of-mouth!

    16. Dean Hunt on July 8, 2008 Jul 08, 08 | 2:04 pm

      hmmm, that is one way of looking at it. Every cloud has a silver lining, so I suppose there are benefits to expensive gas prices.

    Name (required)

    Email (required)

    Website

    XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

    Share your wisdom






    Voted a Forbes Favorite for small business and marketing. "Clever marketing ideas galore and lots of contrarian thinking on what works and what doesn't."

    ~ Forbes magazine

    Twitter Feed

    Right now, John Jantsch is . . .

    Amazon plugin here

    Small Business Marketing Magazines


    Free - No strings attached - Business and Marketing Magazine Subscriptions

    Target Marketing
    CRM
    Internet Retailer
    eWeek
    Electronic Publisher
    Print Media and more


    Creative Commons License
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
    Attribution-NonCommercial
    -NoDerivs 2.5 License
    .
    Get mobile version of Duct Tape Marketing
    AddThis Feed Button



    Subscribe to the Duct Tape Podcast
    subscribe via iTunes

    Duct Tape Marketing System

    Duct Tape Marketing System

    Duct Tape System - Complete small business marketing system in 16 workbooks and 12 audio CDs.


    Referral Flood by John Jantsch

    Referral Flood by John Jantsch

    Referral Flood - How to create a flood of new business without spending one dime on advertising - by John Jantsch


    The Lead Generation Machine

    Lead Generation Machine

    Lead Generation Machine - How to create a consistent flow of high-quality leads.


    Blog Lightning by John Jantsch

    Blog Lightning by John Jantsch

    Blog Lightning - How To Create and Promote Your Blog In A Flash


    Subscribe to my weekly newsletter



    After you hit subscribe button page will refresh and you are good to go


    Connect Socially