There’s a marketing lesson to be learned from the Tour de France.  The race is won on the hills.  It’s not the downhill easy selling that wins, it’s the selling against the wind, up hill, against the odds.

Everywhere we turn, we hear how bad this recession is…or is going to be.  How marketers are hiding in their shells and budgets are being devastated.  It won’t be until after the recession is over that we hear about those companies that chose to make gains during the bad times.  They’ll be the heroes.

I don’t know what our competitors are doing, but here are our strategies:

1.  Focus on our clients success–There’s no question we have clients who have cut their budgets, but we have come to the collective conclusion that we have to work harder to make every dollar they spend count.  Our goal is to help them come out of this challenging time as a winner in their category.

2.  Investing in ourselves–We all know there’s a great convergence of communications capability.  We are investing in cross training to significantly improve our capabilities across all communications venues.  We believe that the future lies in the capability to bring convention, non-convention and what some call “new” media together into an integrated marketing effort focused on results.

3.  Focus on creativity–The tougher the challenge, the better the creative needs to be.  Our goal is to produce work that is a multiplier in terms of effectiveness.  Work that creates buzz and ingrains our clients’ brands in the hearts and minds of our target audiences.

4.  Demand more–We are going to demand more of ourselves and our vendor partners.  We’ll pay for performance and extra effort.  We’ll negotiate so our clients win but nobody loses.  Fortunately, we have vendor partners in the media who work with us as partners for a common goal.

5.  Focus on results–This is a time where everything we do for our clients, must meet the test of results.  If something works, we’ll find ways to do more of it.  If something does not work, we’ll dump it fast and invest in what does.

6.  Be smart, but be bold–No time for the brash or timid.  We’ll do our homework and swing for the fences.