In Hillary Clinton’s book It Takes a Village, her premise was that raising children today requires the participation of a broad network of caring people that includes family, friends, neighbors, churches and synagogues, teachers, and community groups.

I don’t need to remind you about what’s going on out there. The list of economic challenges is long. Honestly, many days I’m overwhelmed by it. But I’m a true believer in strategic optimism and I believe this can be a rewarding time for many businesses.

As a Strategic Optimist, I want to make my own luck. For my money, I’m betting that Ms. Clinton’s ‘village’ thesis applies: It’s going to take a village to succeed in this economy – and succeed we can.

The principles for marketing success remain the same; a core message, a long term communication plan, and effective offers with a strong call to action. It’s your communications plan (and your operations plan as well) that should embrace a likely approach this economy will demand – joint community effort.

Cost will accelerate as a major theme in the coming months. Therefore strategies must include the buying power offered by creating and participating in cooperatives, associations, and alliances. Equally, if not more importantly, revenue and cash flows remain the food that fuels any meaningful success. And community building and activation will produce the greatest return from resources allocated.

Joining the Hunt

Networking and ‘leads’ groups have proliferated for years. Their primary mission is to look out for potential contacts that could lead to business for other members of the group. It does in fact produce some success stories, but all too often they are inwardly focused. People look at what the next member can do for them. The concept of team does not seem to take root in these organizations.

What I’m talking about isn’t just the occasional referral that colleagues may offer each other. Rather, I’m talking about going hunting together, putting the odds of success in your favor. In our business at Burst Marketing, we rely on our growing Creative Network for more than just executing the projects that we can bring to them. They are our partners – all of us working together as a team to create business for each other. They are core members of our community, our village.

Neither we nor they can be as successful on our own in generating new business as we can together in a knock down, drag out environment. Together, operating with a shared vision and with well defined expectations, we can increase the odds of our success – and position ourselves for market leadership when the economy begins to flourish once again.

We are going to see neglected approaches to building revenue and saving money reappear in the daily approaches of those that will prosper. Competitors may band together either in formal alliances, informal initiatives, or may merge outright.

Distribution channels linking national and regional companies with smaller organizations offering a strong local presence will take root. B2B customers will seek new business opportunities together with suppliers, while retailers and other B2C businesses will work harder than ever on service to secure customer loyalty. Watch as barter groups resurface. Networking and leads groups grow.

These old-time strategies are further enhanced by today’s communication tools. Social networks will march on – bigger than ever. Traditional advertising and direct marketing will continue their paths towards integration with online tactics of every stripe.

All these approaches add up to the creation of modern commercial villages.

‘Buy local’ is a movement promoted as a means to deal with the threat to the survival of community farms and businesses while addressing aspects of global warming.

To combat the threat posed by a contracting economy, now’s the time to embrace an old philosophy made new again – ‘buy together, sell together’.

Posted by: Steve Banis