Economic Crises Call for Better Marketing Plans

By Tim Berry of Entrepreneur.com

As I write this, uncertainty crashes all around us like a violent hurricane. Now is the time to bolster your sales and marketing plans and get ready for disaster business planning. Lehman Brothers went under, Merrill Lynch (STOCK QUOTE: MER) was picked up in a fire sale by Bank of America (STOCK QUOTE: BAC) and AIG (STOCK QUOTE: AIG) needed government assistance to stay afloat.

Also, we're worried about the Chinese pulling their money out of our economy, sending us spiraling further downward. And nobody has figured out what to do about huge federal spending deficits. Then there's trade deficits (although the plunging dollar will help curb that problem), the subprime crisis, plunging real estate values, a crashing stock market, not much hope for venture capitalists getting money out of their investments for a while, and, wow, take a breath, what else?

Oh, yes ... I know ... do you plan during this kind of chaos, or just duck and cover? Is business planning out of the question? Is it useful?

Let me answer that question with another question: Who do you want to be when the hurricane is coming? Do you want to be one who carefully boards the windows and lashes everything down, closes up and then evacuates with time to spare and a basic plan? Or would you rather be the one that does nothing and ends up drowning or gets rescued by brave people risking their own lives to do it?

Using that analogy, I'd suggest that what you ought to do as the storm comes -- or preferably before the storm -- is review and revise your plan to include everything and anything your business or start-up needs during a crisis.