Red Frog, Inc.

(from "How to Profit in a Down Economy" by Josh Barinstein, Copyright 2004)

Staying focused and active during these difficult times. I'll jump straight into that. Many of the things I'll be talking about today are of great value during bad times and good times. I want you to keep them in mind for use at all times. If you do this, if you follow some of these steps, you'll be ahead obviously during the difficult economy but also when things are better. And this way you're never concerned about how the economy is performing, and I believe that is a great thing. Sam Walton, you might know as the founder of Wal-Mart, was asked during a recession what he was going to do. And his response was, "We don't plan to participate." I think that is a great answer. And it sets the tone for this teleconference. I urge you not to participate when times get difficult!

So, let's talk about staying focused and active. On the surface it makes perfect sense, we all know that we should be doing that. The fact is that many companies lose sight of it and they don't do this during difficult times because there's that feeling of the end being near.

Now what's important, and I said it before, is that change is a given. Ups and downs are going to happen regardless of what our agenda might be. So, if you keep that in mind, if you have the awareness in place that a down time is going to happen, it's rendered painless, I think, because you're prepared for its inevitability. If you choose not to panic, if a company chooses themselves not to panic and keep a focus on the big picture in the long-term, it is right away ahead of the competition. And you have to bear in mind, and you've seen it in the news, you've seen it all around you: most companies out there, when things go bad they go into a shock, a hibernation of sorts. Companies will stop spending, they'll stop planning, they'll stop thinking. So, they are stopped by the state of the economy. And when you have entire industries, with a lot of companies going through the same emotions, we end up all feeding off each other and it's bad news, everything comes down together.

The challenge, I would say, to staying active and focused is, and this is kind of a bold statement, not to pay attention to what's going on around you. Not to pay constant attention. And please notice I did not say ignore what's going on, you should watch the news, and you should speak to your colleagues. But not to be taken by what appears to be, on the surface, the end of the world.

So, here are some ideas for doing this. We recommend highly holding frequent, what we call out-of-the-box meetings where you step away from problems, you step away for the moment, the economy, and you can see the larger picture. When five or ten people come together some great brainstorming can happen on how things can be handled. New ideas are easily generated that way. And that gets you away from what we might call "the blues."

Secondly, creating an overall strategy, which a company should always have. A strategy will then translate into a solid gameplan, which will give you actual actions items that you can follow day to day, week to week, month to month, regardless of what the media is reporting or what your colleagues are saying. So that provides you a focus on things.

And thirdly I would say you want to always be focusing on what's unique about your company. If you do this during a difficult economy you are staying on course in what you bring to the public and how you bring it to them, and it allows you to be focused and to stay on track. The good news is that at a normal pace, and I think you've already picked up on this theme, is that by following just a few ideas, even with just what we've said so far, is that you will be ahead of others who are standing still, because that is what others will be doing. If you grow faster, and this is an important statistic, if you grow faster than your competition during a down time, you'll be doubling your chances of getting above average shareholder value gains. And this comes right from PricewaterhouseCoopers, a professional services organization. They claim from the research that growing faster during a down time doubles your chances of getting that above average gain.

[Participant]
That's very interesting, wow.

[Josh Barinstein]
Yeah, very interesting statistic. It gives you a feeling that you can push ahead and see results. It gives you confidence. It's important to remember that downsizing during a bad time, just because of the shock and the emotion, and the drama surrounding it, will obviously have a demoralizing effect. People will, those who are left behind, it will decrease their productivity. It will just lower the morale. So, the last thing that we want to do is cut down, downsize when it's unnecessary, rather than capitalizing on what's available and looking for those opportunities. That's the first point that I've just covered.

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Josh Barinstein is President of Red Frog, Inc., the Southern California ad agency that provides worry-free experiences and powerful results in the areas of Marketing, Print design, and Web/CD-ROM development.

Learn more at www.RedFrogInc.com or by calling 888-955-0550.

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