The CRhighway Business District

As you travel the highway, local businesses would love you to stop by and shop local.  Keeping our money in the community impacts jobs, services and the quality of life in our county. 

CRhighway Business Solutions offers new business websites, website interventions and search engine submissions or optimizations.  Ask for a FREE Web Marketing Evaluation.

Check out CRhighway's special introductory rates for banner advertising, video advertising, advertorials and sponsorships.

2009 New Year's Business Resolutions

We make personal new year's resolutions and 17% of us actually keep them.  Business success is about disciplined execution of a business plan, "discipline" being the operative word.  So, maybe this is a great time to make disciplined business resolutions for 2009.

In my meetings with local business people this year, here are some points I picked up on that might be effective resolutions for your business.

1)  Resolve:  Focus on marketing one hour per week.  A customer recently told me that she didn't have time to focus on marketing.  I suspect that if she made a list of things she did during the last week, at least 15 hours worth of busy work on her list would fall below marketing as a priority.  Commit one hour per week and put it on your calendar today for the whole year.

2)  Resolve:  Leverage free or inexpensive marketing opportunities.  Work with your chamber, civic organizations and non-profits.  Update you business card, your brochures and website and get them out into the community.  Look for sponsorship opportunities through work or product contributions.  Check into the pre-movie slide shows at the local theaters.  Evaluate your pricing strategy, how you market through your website, your advertising plan... everything.  Marketing is like breathing.  If your business isn't marketing, it isn't breathing.

3)  Resolve:  Spend at least 4 hours a week outside your place of business networking and marketing.  You never know where your next business opportunity will come from, but it will begin with a conversation.  Make yourself visible in the community, visit potential promotional partners, explore ways to bundle your products or services with other business promotions, visit your competition, talk to your customers, talk to your lost customers, welcome new businesses to town.  Market, breath, market, breath...

4)  Resolve:  Make something happen today.  Get out from behind the counter, up from your desk, outside your comfort zone.  Do something, talk to someone or go somewhere with an action plan in mind.  Think big, be creative, try something new.

5)  Resolve:  To minimize the impact of the economy on your business.  We can let the state of the economy be our excuse for the state of our business.  And everyone will buy it.  But, while the economy is certainly a real concern, resolve today and every morning that we have to work smarter, be more creative, have higher expectations and accept no prisoners this year. 

If the economy is down 25%, we have to be 25% more effective to stay even.  In many cases that will mean finding a new incremental revenue opportunity.  Whatever it means, begin today and stay committed to your plan. 

Make The Web Your Marketing Competitive Advantage

Think of the web as your virtual brochure rack, your menu in your customer's home, your catalog on any PC, your sales rep prospecting the world-wide web!

As more and more people got he the web to find everything, the convenience of the web as a business, product or service directory cannot be ignored.

Coffee shops and retailers offer WiFi.  The "cell phone" is no longer just a phone, it is how I find a place to go for lunch, a present for my wife, the part for my car, my next house or car.  And it provides navigation to get there.

The web will either help you grow your business by 15% this year or it will cost you 15% as your customers go to the businesses that make it easy to do business with them through the web.