A: Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 is a fully functional version of Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 7. The Release Candidate is currently available for IT pros and tech enthusiasts alike until at least June 2009.

Microsoft is not limiting the number of product keys, so you have some time to download and install it. The full version of Windows 7 is scheduled to be released later this year, but for those who don’t want to wait for the full release, you can download the RC from Microsoft’s website now. You don’t need to be a systems administrator to use the Release Candidate, but you should be an experienced computer user.

Q: What are the minimum requirements for running Windows 7?

A: The minimum requirements aren’t all that hefty, but you should have a system that is capable of handling Windows Vista and be aware that the Release Candidate will become completely unusable on June 1, 2010. Be warned that the release candidate will not run on your machine forever, starting in March the operating system is supposed to shut down every two hours.

Q: Why try Windows 7? I’m just getting used to using Vista…

A: If you are happy with XP or Vista, then by all means stay with it. A Release Candidate install is not for the faint of heart. I am using the Release Candidate because I purchased a system a few years back in preparation for Windows Vista, only to join the disgruntled masses in early adopting an operating system that I really didn’t care for. I installed the Windows 7 Beta earlier this year and have been extremely happy with it so far. It isn’t the next level of computing and is unlikely to get any Mac users to cross over. However, it is everything that I thought I would get in Vista and didn’t. It’s stable, it’s reliable, and it’s pretty easy on the eyes as well. If you’re ready for a change and don’t want to wait for the full release, give it a try.

Jarmarklabs.com is home to Surgeon’s Skin Secret, a skin moisturizer. Surgeon’s Skin Secret was developed in 1950 by a plastic surgeon that used it to treat post surgical wounds. The product kept the wound from infecting and also helped to reduce scarring. Surgeon’s Skin Secret is an all natural beeswax moisturizer, which contains lanolin and mineral oil. The formula softens dry, chapped, irritated skin. Among its many extra benefits include: non-water solubility (won’t wash off easily), seals in the body’s natural moisture, and it’s a long lasting formula.

Founded in 1996 by President Jim Kaiser, Jamark Laboratories has always employed a multi-layer marketing approach that included the Internet, some retail outlets and appearances on QVC. Visit the site and you’ll see customer friendly buttons like Specials, Factory Outlet, Articles and Information, VIP offers and a “share with a friend” free sample with purchase. The company knows that 9 out of 10 women who try the product, love it - but how to get customers to the site?

While attending Solid Cactus Boot Camp in May of 2008, Jim’s son Steve (National Sales Manager) talked to other store owners who felt that Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing was the best way to drive people to their websites. Steve was convinced and began working with Solid Cactus on a PPC plan the next day. His one requirement – the budget could not exceed $500 per month. The experts at Solid Cactus accepted the challenge.

None of your bee’s wax!

Bee’s wax is an unusual ingredient in a skin moisturizer. As part of Solid Cactus’ competitor research prior to the start of Jamarklabs.com’s PPC marketing, a Google keyword discovery analysis showed that bee’s wax was not listed as a keyword for competitor sites which were similar in product pricing. This was a first step in developing a group of keywords that would be tested during phase one of the PPC marketing campaign.

Leigh McGlynn, Sr. Search Engine Marketing Manager at Solid Cactus, launched the PPC marketing in June 2008, well ahead of Jamarklabs.com’s busy season. “This is really important,” notes Leigh, “you need to test your PPC marketing far enough in advance to be able to make adjustments and be ready for your peak selling season.” For Jamarklabs.com, the busy season is September-January so the summer was a perfect time to build ads, test creative word choices, gather data and make adjustments.

Remarkable Results!

When September arrived, the PPC marketing was hitting its stride. Strong GoogleAdWord performers were also being used on Yahoo! and MSN with similar results. The statistics said it all - Conversions increased while the return on advertising spending (ROAS) almost tripled. All of this was accomplished with a small, consistently placed budget that used researched, but perhaps unusual keywords.

Steve Kaiser was impressed. “Everybody at Solid Cactus is really good at what they do. I try not to bother them. They have the professionalism and expertise, and I’ve hired them to do the job. So I just stay out of the way.” The PPC marketing continues in a maintenance mode during the slower months, focusing on promoting Steve’s incentives, promotions, coupons and the addition of new products with the same testing, managing bids and optimizing of ads.

Steve mentioned another good reason to work with Solid Cactus. “It’s a one-stop shop,” he noted, “I can get all the marketing help I need from them.” Jamarklabs.com uses the Solid Cactus Call Center, SEO and recently did a site redesign. Future plans include adding flash video and a zip code locator to the site.

About Jamarklabs.com

Jamarklabs.com, headquartered in Grand Rapids, MI, is owned and operated by the Kaiser family. President and Co-Founder Jim Kaiser has over 30 years in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries and son Steve is the National Sales Manager. The Surgeon’s Skin Secret line of products was launched online in 1996 and has grown to over 40 items/configurations delivered from a 10,000 square foot facility on the South East Side of Grand Rapids. For information, visit http://www.jamarklabs.com or call 888.252.6275.

Any of these events have the potential to destroy what you’ve built. How you handle it will make or break your business.

There are many types of crisis situations, but most fall into one of these categories:

• Messes you’ve gotten yourself into – You promised delivery of 1,000 bedazzled vests by Thursday without checking to see if that many are available. Now the Red Hat ladies can’t march in the parade and you have a major customer service crisis.

• Functional Boo Boos - Your chocolate chip cookie mix included too much vanilla and not enough brown sugar. The blech factor is high. What happened to your quality control? This is a crisis of function.

• The case of mistaken identity – a company that sells something that is “almost” the same as yours has a catastrophe. Your gourmet peanut butter is not affected by the recent quality issues that were widely publicized in the news – but nobody is buying peanut butter because of it.

• Screw ups that aren’t related to core competencies – Deemed such by Wharton operations and information management professor Maurice Schweitzer, these are those “acts of God” – a hurricane floods your warehouse wiping out your inventory and “unexpected catastrophe” – your CFO clears out your bank account and heads to Columbia. Neither is relative to your core business, but both damage your customer confidence.

The way your company responds to a crisis, especially in the early stages of the event, will determine whether or not your company can be trusted in the future. Are you prepared? Do you have a crisis management plan? A well-managed crisis can not only preserve your reputation and credibility – it can actually enhance them. Don’t panic. Look at it as an opportunity.

Plan for Panic

Can you plan for every possible event? Of course not. But you can be prepared to swing into action when one occurs IF you have a plan. Do it now! When a crisis occurs there is no time to think about a crisis plan. Immediate needs must be met. Do it well, and you will gain friends who will give you the benefit of the doubt and quite possibly help you. Do it badly and the negative perceptions will linger long after the crisis is history. Industry statistics show that a high percentage of companies who do not have a response plan in place will fail to recover from the crisis.

The plan does not have to be a highly-detailed document, but it should provide a flexible action plan that can be easily adjusted to the situation and implemented quickly.

In general, the crisis response plan should include:

• Who’s in charge? – Decide who is on the crisis management team by position not name, and who will speak for your organization.

• Who’s in charge of what? – List the responsibilities of the members of
the team.

• What happens first? Create a step by step action plan and checklist for everyone to use.

• How do we let everyone know what’s going on? Put together a communications plan that includes a list of key media and how you’ll get the information to them.

• When do we pull the trigger? Decide how and when the plan will be activated.

Get the Word Out

The most important part of your crisis plan is communication. Nothing drives negative rumors, innuendo, etc. faster than a lack of information or an insincere apology. In addition, good news travels at the speed of a click – and bad news even faster. The media will not wait while you meet with your attorney to craft a response. You do not have the luxury of time, which is why you must plan and even have a bare bones crisis release ready – one that includes the basics on your company, who the important people are and how media (and others) can get more information. Here are three steps in that process:

1. Determine who needs to hear your message - your customers, suppliers, employees, business partners, the media. Have the means to reach them in place – e-mail addresses, phone numbers, etc.

2. Determine how you want to reach them – with a statement on your homepage, a posting to your blog or to an industry blog, an e-mail blast, a press conference or media call. You will want to use as many communication channels as possible. Your response needs to be handled in hours, not days.

3. Determine what you want to say. This is the most important aspect of any crisis management response. State what you know and only what you know. Sincerely apologize. Let your audiences know you are gathering information as quickly as possible and describe what you are doing to resolve the situation. If possible explain why the crisis occurred – but do not speculate. You (senior leadership) are your spokesperson – do not delegate this responsibility. Update your information frequently. Above all, be truthful. You will gain respect and credibility by being transparent and open in your message and response.

Crisis Response Grading

Once the crisis is over, evaluate the effectiveness of your plan. What worked, what didn’t? How can you improve? What should you avoid doing in the future? Write it all down and incorporate it into your Crisis Management Plan. Then make sure everyone involved gets a copy of the revised document.

Finally, send out a thank you to your customers, suppliers and yes, the media. This common courtesy can go a long way towards rebuilding or enhancing your brand and reputation.

In the marketing world we often find that traffic isn’t the issue, but rather, it’s the small aspects of a website that when tweaked and optimized properly, can lead to some pretty amazing results.

On the other hand, sometimes it is the traffic. You may have well-written ads or an excellent call-to-action, but the traffic isn’t there. Maybe your advertising is attracting the wrong demographic for your products. Maybe the colors, theme or navigation of your website aren’t as customer- friendly as they could be. Maybe you’re targeting very price-sensitive shoppers and they find your prices to be too steep. It could be a million things, and honing in on those items can be tricky, but that’s where Google Analytics (GA) can help.

If you’ve heard me speak or present before, or read any of my blog posts or articles, you know I’m a pretty big analytics fan. There are five essential Google Analytics reports that you should look at everyday!

Before we begin, just remember, you should never use any analytics package as an accounting tool due to the margins of error. You also should have the e-commerce section of GA activated.

Now, let’s take a look –

1. All Traffic Sources E-Commerce Report

• Found Under – Traffic Sources, All Traffic Sources, E-commerce Tab

This report allows you to very quickly understand which traffic sources are sending you traffic that is actually converting into a sale. You may be acquiring traffic “and if you’re paying for that traffic” you are most certainly going to want it to convert. We find the average e-commerce conversion rate to be between one and three percent. All of these metrics are fully sortable, so if you want to look at top visits, highest sales medium or highest average order value, you can find it all there.

2. Content By Title Report

• Found Under – Content, Content By Title

This is one of my favorite reports since it shows in very clear English which pages are getting the most traffic, their respective bounce rates (anything below 40% is pure gold), time on site and dollar index. This report also helps you isolate those pages to which you should (or should not) send traffic. And, if the metrics don’t look to rosy, then you’ve found the first few pages to begin optimizing and tweaking.

3. Purchase Funnel Visualization Report

• Found Under – Goals, Funnel Visualization

This report shows the process flow inside of your shopping cart (and in which areas traffic is abandoning your cart). This report is going to be broken into the same number of steps under which your cart is established. If your cart has four steps, then you’ll see four buckets, if you have three steps, then you’ll see three buckets, etc. From this report, you can see at which step the bulk of your customers are leaving. This data can provide you with some excellent action steps! These steps could suggest to lower your shipping price, redesign your cart and so on…

4. Hourly Revenue Report

• Found Under – E-Commerce, Total Revenue, Graph By Hour

One truly underrated report! If you have a smaller ad budget to work with then this report is your best friend! It very clearly isolates your top selling times; understanding this helps you to determine at which times you should and should not be advertising.

5. Visits To Purchase Report

• Found Under – E-Commerce, Visits To Purchase

This report is extremely important to understanding how many times it takes customers to visit your site before they buy. Sometimes, depending upon the item’s cost, demand, and availability – it takes more than one visit to purchase this item. Perhaps a customer visits your website, checks prices or shipping options, then visits some of your competitors only to return two more times before buying on the third visit. This is key to knowing the length and duration of your buying cycle. PPC or CSE cookies can be lost after one or two visits, so understanding the elongation of the funnel can help to understand your traffic sources and customer behavior.

Next month we’ll explore five more essential analytics reports. Stay tuned!

The results were interesting, as the responses show that many of you are very attuned to best practices to help your business succeed. However, as expected, there were some answers that threw up a red flag. I want to share some of those responses with you and offer a few solutions.

First, in the survey we asked: On your store, what options do you give for customers to contact you?

I wasn’t surprised to see that 95.7% of you use e-mail as a way for customers to contact you; however, I am concerned that only 60% use a phone number. Granted, I’m happy to see that we’re over the 50% mark, but that’s still a big gap for a customer service tool that can be the difference between making or breaking the sale.

The Solid Cactus Call Center sees phone calls lead to sales on a daily basis. In April of this year we saw just one phone call amount to a $9,000 sale for a client. What do you think the odds are that a sale like that would happen over e-mail? E-mail is a great tool for customers to reach out to you but if it’s your number one vehicle for customer communication, chances are, it’s costing you sales. Our Call Center has solutions for just about any need. If you need someone to answer calls after hours or on weekends or to take all your calls, we can help. Our Virtual Office Service can also help you with administrative needs (such as answering that e-mail sitting in your inbox). Visit
http://callcenter.solidcactus.com to find out more.

Two more questions caught my attention because the responses show a disconnect in marketing strategies. In one question we asked: What advertising channels do you use?

Over 87% of you use organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to promote your site, which is not surprising. However, in a later question we asked “Do you have a blog? How often do you update it?” Over 60% of you responded that you don’t have a blog at all and of those that have a blog, only 7% of you said you update your blog more than once a week.

If 87% of you are using SEO, but only 7% of you are actively using a great SEO strategy like blogging, we have a problem. Blogs are just one piece of Social Media that can increase your organic visibility. If you’re going to rely upon SEO, be sure you have a good strategy in place. I would recommend an SEO evaluation to see what’s working well for you and to identify what opportunities you’re missing. Solid Cactus has managed SEO and Social Media Optimization (SMO) services if you don’t have the time or resources to properly nurture your SEO. Visit http://evals.solidcactus.com to learn more about our evaluations.

One more question that I want to highlight is “How do you process orders?” Over 63% of you do it manually in the backend of your Yahoo! Store. With multiple drop-shippers or warehouses, this is a very time-consuming aspect of running your business. You should really consider a backend order management system such as Cactus Complete Commerce for processing your orders. You can automate your order processing and free yourself from other aspects of your business. There’s no software to load, there are built-in wizards to make product setups easy, and it’s a very affordable solution for running your Yahoo! Store. Find out more at http://www.cactuscompletecommerce.com.

Again, everyone at Solid Cactus appreciates your participation. Information such as this is vital to know so as we develop and market products, we know just what our customers are seeking.

The final part of the survey was a drawing to win a limited-edition Solid Cactus Flip Mino HD. I’d like to congratulate Doug Duguay from Bicycling Hub and Ron Gehard from Apar Services.

Thank you to everyone who completed our survey, and we look forward to continuing to be your partner in e-commerce success.

There are a lot of fantastic search engines that offer Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. Google, Yahoo! and MSN take the lion’s share of the market, but you shouldn’t limited yourself just to those. Smaller “second tier” search engines can be an excellent supplement to your growing search marketing strategy. Additionally, if you find that your particular industry is saturated across the larger search engines, it may be impossible to bid for the first page and make a profit. Often less competition on the smaller engines means you can bid effectively at a cheaper price. Regardless of your reasons, it’s a good idea to test out smaller search engines from time to time. There are some pros and cons to working with smaller engines, so let’s take a look at both.

The Positives

Less competition - Second tier search engines often have less advertisers, which means you don’t have as much competition to fight with over ad space. Many times, small business owners don’t expand beyond Google, Yahoo! or MSN. Use this to your advantage!

Lower costs – This goes hand in hand with the lower amount of competition. When a particular market is saturated on the big search engines, the average cost per click of those keywords will often go up as advertisers try to gain position over the huge number of competitors. With less people to compete against, you may find that your cost per click is lower, which means you can drive more traffic for the same amount of money.

Vertical specific advertising – Vertical search engines (or specialty search engines) are still relatively new in the search scene. These engines focus on a specific type of content, like Business.com. If your product appeals to a specific demographic, start looking for search engines that focus on your niche, whether it be construction or the medical profession. The searchers using those engines will be pre-disposed to your message, which may help your bottom line.

The Negatives

Tracking limitations – One of the biggest issues you’ll encounter with smaller search engines is how to measure your success. Most of the second tier engines don’t offer any type of conversion tracking, which makes it hard to refine and optimize your campaigns. You can work around this by using track links or tagging your URLs.

Low traffic – The volume of traffic coming through second tier engines is much less than Google. If you’re looking for something to replace your accounts on the “Big Three”, this isn’t going to do it. Think of second tier search as a supplement to your current marketing instead of a replacement to your current PPC.

Click fraud – Click fraud is a type of Internet crime that occurs when a person or automated script clicks on your ad in order to generate cost. While all search engines are aware of the issues and try to combat them, Google, Yahoo! and MSN are the most pro-active in their approach. If you feel you were the victim of click fraud, you might have a harder time getting a refund from a second tier search engine.

While there are some issues with second tier search engines, you can find work-arounds for most of these. You won’t know how well a search engine can perform for you until you try it, so start shopping around and give it a try!

Facebook gave its look and functionality an upgrade that has fundamentally changed its user experience for regular and business users in March 2009. Fan reaction to the changes has been mixed, but there is no indication that the new look and feel of Facebook is going away. Here are some pointers on optimizing the new Facebook business pages to better connect with your customers and fans.

Business pages on Facebook now resemble personal profile pages, with profile information moving into the left column of the page and the Wall (an area where fans can communicate with you publicly) and the Mini-Feed (an aggregate of status updates and other activities) now dominate the center column of the layout. The most important thing about this change is twofold:

1. Business pages can now make status updates just like every other Facebook profile.

2. Updates will be communicated to your fans as they happen, as well as any new photos, notes or videos uploaded to your account.

Regular updates are a good way to keep fans aware of any news about your online store and are a good way to promote sales, coupon codes and special offers. Try to update your status when your fans are most active to achieve the maximum reach. The nature of the new layout promotes the freshest information; fans with hundreds of friends may not see your news if it isn’t made in high-usage periods, which may be late night or early morning for some demographics. As always with social media, don’t make every update a sales pitch, and try to interact with your customers when appropriate.

RSS Feeds: RSS feeds can now be published on your profile as Notes automatically. Use the RSS from your blog or a feed of your press releases and share your latest posts or press releases with your fans. These updates can increase traffic on your blog and help to build a community around it. A more active blog community can lead to more activity in your store.

Applications: The changes to the layout mean that pages will have tabs, again like a personal profile. You can add applications to your business page that can allow you to share Twitter updates, among other things. While leaving the most important apps on the main section of the profile, you can move less important ones to the applications tab to present a cleaner presentation for your fans and customers.

Default Landing Page Selection: Fans visiting your page will be shown your Wall and Mini-Feed; however, non-fans visiting your page can be served any tab on your page’s profile. Set up a tab to share product videos, for instance, or the information tab showing your contact information, hours and other vital information that prospective customers can use to contact you.

In the past, Pages’ limitations often resulted in them becoming a set-it-and-forget-it advertising platform with limited interactivity beyond the discussion application — a mini-site for your business that did not need frequent content updates in order to function. The new changes mean that more frequent content sharing is likely to be rewarded with greater customer interaction, a higher likelihood of your message going viral, and an increased chance to gain new fans. The downside is that it requires a greater time investment and may be more difficult to track than other traffic-driving referring sites. Even so, Facebook’s userbase can’t be ignored, and can drive positive word-of-mouth and converting traffic to your store. If you feel lacking in the fan department, consider allocating a portion of your paid search ad spend each month to Facebook’s ad platform; Facebook advertising may not be the best option for sending traffic outside of its own network, but there are success stories of paid ads pointing to business and fan pages.

Facebook is still growing and still very buzzworthy. Your customers use it and, if they like your business, they want to interact with your brand there. Knowing the best way to use the “new Facebook” will help you to connect with them.

We had our sixth Boot Camp @ HQ which was an overwhelming success. Nearly 40 e-commerce merchants from around the country spent three days learning about Internet marketing, store design, customer service, store features and best practices from Solid Cactus team members. They also had the opportunity to attend sessions put on by guest presenters from Yahoo! Small Business, Google, Best of the Web and MeritCard.

If you’re curious as to what went on, go to http://blog.solidcactus.com and click on the Boot Camp category for blog posts and videos from the event.

Have You Heard the News?

At the end of April, we announced that Solid Cactus was acquired by the leading provider of online marketing services for small businesses, Web.com (NASDAQ: WWWW).

All of us are excited to be part of the larger Web.com family that now numbers 850 employees across the United States and Canada.

The first thing you may be asking is, “What does this mean for me?” Simply put, it means “business as usual.” While we may have a new owner, everything and everyone you know and trust at Solid Cactus is the same.

Our commitment to being a total e-commerce solutions provider remains unchanged, in fact, it’s going to become even stronger. David Brown, our CEO, echoed that sentiment in a press release, “The acquisition of Solid Cactus demonstrates our commitment to providing small medium businesses with a broad range of solutions and domain expertise to help them convert website traffic to sales.”

Rest assured, we will continue to design, program and support your e-commerce store today, tomorrow and in the future. We recently introduced eight new products for Yahoo! Store at Boot Camp, and just introduced a ninth, Scratch & Save. No other developer has ever come out with nine new products at one time and we will continue to constantly introduce new products and features to make your store a success.

Finally, I invite you to visit us at the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition in Boston, June 15th through the 18th. Stop by the Solid Cactus booth to see what’s new.

Product Scroller

The first of these products is the Product Scroller. Every online merchant wants to show as many products as possible on their website. Sometimes, though, this causes your homepage to be overpopulated and can cause the need for customers to scroll down the page to see all you have to offer. Product Scroller keeps your products within that prime real estate known as “above the fold”. This product is also customizable for your colors and borders to match your site. And, it’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) friendly!

Dynamic Sales Page

Dynamic Sales Page is another of the great new features. Shoppers love a bargain but don’t want to scroll through pages of products to find one. The Dynamic Sales Page places all of your sale items in one place. It used to be that populating a sales page was quite a chore–a lot of cutting and pasting item ids in hopes of not missing anything. With the Dynamic Sales Page, any item in your store that has a sale price is automatically added to the Sales Page, thus eliminating the need to cut and paste all those items into a new section page! Easier shopping for your customers and easier populating for you…sounds like a win-win situation, don’t you think?

Recession Buster features

The next products are the Recession Buster features: Recession Buster Quote Form and Recession Buster Dynamic Pricing. Solid Cactus first used Recession Buster on its own website. The Recession Buster was such a hit with our clients they were asking us how they can purchase the feature for their own websites. We believe you have to give the people what they want, so here it is…Recession Buster for your website! The first is the Recession Buster Quote Form which gives your customers the ability to negotiate a price online. Customers are asked on the Quote Form to submit their budget for a particular item and an e-mail is sent to you with that request; you only need to respond to that e-mail with an acceptance, denial or even a counter-offer. Even if the result is not a sale, you’ve captured their name and e-mail address and you can continue to market to that potential customer.

The second Recession Buster feature is the Dynamic Pricing which works like an online auction. Your customers can make a bid on a product based upon the price you set, and the bid can be accepted or rejected based upon the pre-set amounts you decide. You can also limit the number of bids that can be placed. You don’t really want customers bidding until they find the perfect price so you can, for example, limit the number of bids to three or four. After the set number of bids, if the customer hasn’t met your required amount, you can let the customer know what price you will accept, and the customer then has the option of accepting that offer. You’re still giving a discount and still making the sale.

Store Locator & Driving Directions

If you own a brick and mortar store or sell your products via resellers, this next product is for you! The Store Locator and Driving Directions allow your customers to find your brick and mortar store without leaving your website. Store Locator allows your customers to search for your store by zip code and desired mileage. With Driving Directions, customers can obtain directions to your store from your website; they don’t need to venture to a mapping website.

Randomly Displayed Testimonials v2.0

Randomly Displayed Testimonials v2.0 is another of the products rolled out at Boot Camp. Randomly Displayed Testimonials allows your customers to read the great testimonials you receive from happy shoppers. The testimonials rotate while your customers shop, and if they see one they like they can click “Read More”; they are then taken directly to that testimonial on your testimonial page.

Mega Drop Down menu

Mega Drop Down menu allows your customers to view sub-sections and sub-sub-sections on your website. They can view images of your products, you can flag sections that have sale items, and you can set the number of columns that appear, too. It’s a great way to show your sub-sections when your customers hover over a section. All the deeper sub-levels are now visible.

In planning this article, I reached out to some store merchants and posed the question “what are you doing that’s helping you stay successful despite the bad economy?” When I sent the question out, I expected to read feedback such as “cutting prices”, or worse, “cutting staff”. I thought I’d be writing a list of the Top Ten ways to stay afloat or something of that nature. I’m pleased to say that what I received was far better. I did receive some good business management tips but I think the bigger message I received and the common theme from everyone I heard from; when it comes down to surviving the bad economy, Attitude is Everything!

Tim Fossett of CrescentHarborLighting.com stated, “We are in control of our own destiny. Come hell or high water, we will succeed.”

Fossett has maintained his staff and has even provided them with raises and bonuses in spite of the economic downturn. Fossett feels it’s easy to motivate his team if they feel appreciated personally and professionally.

Fossett’s response reminded me of another example of a company keeping a positive attitude and it’s right here at Solid Cactus. For those of you that have ever attended a Solid Cactus Boot Camp, you’ve witnessed firsthand the enthusiasm and passion of the entire staff. People here love what they do. Day after day we receive e-mails with kudos to team members who went above and beyond to help a client or even a fellow employee. We work late, we work weekends and we do it for more than just a paycheck. We do it because our company’s culture is like no other. We’re all working
toward the same goal; to be sure Solid Cactus is the best name in e-commerce by helping our clients succeed. That is the attitude that keeps a business strong, regardless of the economy.

Aside from a strong sense of teamwork, we enjoy some perks such as a gymnasium complete with basketball nets, a ping-pong table and dodge balls. We have an in-house café and flexible work schedules but I think more importantly, everyone has a voice and an opportunity to shine and be recognized for their contributions.

Granted, I realize that a positive attitude isn’t enough to keep things on track; you have to make wise business decisions. You need to watch your finances like a hawk but that doesn’t mean you should be afraid to spend money on investments that can improve your situation. Too often, the first reaction for merchants during a down economy is to cut their marketing spending, but a decision like this really works against you.

Pam Macharola of BlairCandy.com has been taking advantage of her competitors’ spending fears. She explained, “They’re turning down their ad spend and we’re turning ours up. We’re also changing our PPC advertisements to keep them fresh and using humor to attract more customers. As a result, we’re getting better placement and increased sales.” Macharola loathes the negativity in the media and says, “Right now the economy is my only competition, not the other stores.”

Macharola’s point is excellent. The media seems to work overtime to provide us with a self-fulfilling prophecy that the economy will get worse and worse. They tell us not to spend our money and then make news of how people aren’t spending enough to help the economy. Want to keep a positive attitude? Turn off the news! Don’t read
the paper…just stay passionate about
your business.

Avoid the doom and gloom personalities. When you decided to start a business, you did it because you had a dream and a passion. The media didn’t need to tell you the economy was in the right place to go into business for yourself. The media didn’t start your business. With the right attitude, they won’t destroy it either.

Be sure you have the right attitude and surround yourself with winners. It’s not just about having people, it’s about having the right people. Keep everyone’s spirits up by motivating them to be a part of something bigger than a paycheck. Attitude is everything and continued success starts with you.