Leading your company through a recession.

If you put 15 CEOs in a room and ask them to focus on one important question you get some very practical answers. The following list was compiled by the members of two Vistage CEO groups in the Bay Area chaired by Sterling Lanier.

CEO Driven Activities
- surround yourself with good advisors and seek their help
- focus on sales and staying close to customers
- continue spending on sales related activities
- focus on activities that increase cash flow
- use zero base budgeting and forecast on rolling 12 month basis
- make a cash forecast and action plan for sales down 30%

Get the entire checklist here.

Should you advertise in a down economy?

Most of my clients own or manage midsize companies. Some are finding new opportunities and improving sales numbers during the current economic downturn. Others, not so much.

A few years ago, I developed a presentation that looks at advertising in a recession from the 30 thousand foot level. It asks a simple question: Why advertise in a down economy? This slide show walks you through the process I use in strategic planning sessions or workshops for CEOs and senior executives.

To view in full screen mode, click the SlideShare logo, then click the full screen icon on the slide show control bar. If you prefer a “flat” article, here’s a link that will help.

Also, here’s a post with questions the CEO of a midsize company should ask before cutting the marketing budget.

What business are you in?

When I work with a coaching client, I ask a lot of questions starting with…

– What business are you in?
– What products do you sell?
– What services do you provide?

When a potential customer takes a look at your website, brochure, mailer, biz card…

– What do you want them to learn?
– What do you want them to think?
– What do you want them to feel?
– What do you want them to know?
– What do you want them to do?

When it comes to websites, I ask…

– What problem(s) does your website solve?
– … for whom?

When I get a sense of the answers from my client’s perspective, I ask…

– How would your marketing team answer these questions?
– How about your sales team?
– How would your customers answer them?
– How do you know?

If the answer to the last question is not convincing — and it almost never is — I suggest that we work on finding a way to get solid answers to these questions before we do anything else. It is rare for a CEO, sales manager, marketing director and a select group of customers to agree on a description of a business and its products/services, let alone the message(s) they are trying to communicate.

If you think it is time to make sure your company is strategically aligned, here are some real world tools from Kevin Connolly, marketing guy.

What’s up with boomer marketing?

I’m 58. I was born near the leading-edge of the baby boom. I am not a “senior citizen.”

I once gave a local barber a dirty look and a piece of my mind when he offered me a senior discount. I should have shut up and kept the $5, but he caught me by surprise. I was only 55. Sheeeesh!

I was appalled when AARP sent me an invitation to join when I turned 50. A couple years later, I joined just to see what it was all about. I let my membership expire after deciding AARP is essentially an organization that exists to license its membership list to insurance companies and other marketers who target the “senior” demographic. Yeah, they do some lobbying, but they never asked me what I’d like them to lobby for so thanks, but no thanks.

Sorry, this is a trick question.

When was the last time you had an impartial, dispassionate assessment of your marketing program? You get a dispassionate assessment every time a potential customer takes a look at one of your ads or visits one of your websites. Every time an editor scans a press release or one of your own sales reps decides to use (or toss) another piece of collateral.

Unfortunately, none of these people is likely to volunteer an honest appraisal of your work—yet their honest appraisal is (should be) monumentally important to you.

As a coach and consultant (ad agency creative director in a past life), I have used a four-step process for extracting useful opinions about marketing programs and materials. Try them, they work…