When sales drop, we often have a tough time convincing ourselves that marketing is still a worthwhile investment in our businesses. Our tendency is similar to our response to a brutal cold snap; we curl up in a warm place with our a few DVD's & wait for it to pass.

However, this won't work now, reducing our marketing efforts when our customers are reevaluating their spending, (which is what's going on now,) is a dangerous thing. The last thing we can afford to do is sit on the sidelines while our customers are trying to decide if our services are worth spending their limited dollars for.

As I have mentioned before, we are indeed fortunate that our industry is one of only a few types of businesses providing services based on extending the life of a customers assets such as their home and furnishings that they have already made substantial investments in.

Auto mechanics are in a similar situation. Everyone knows that car dealers are going out of business on a daily basis, but repairs shops won't.

If people aren't buying new cars, it stands to reason that, they will have to maintain and repair their old ones. There's not much choice.

How can we take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

We can easily see that a major shift in consumer behavior has taken place, so we might consider an approach sometimes referred to as "value marketing" or "austerity marketing."

Taking this approach, we would need to spell out the value of our services in a way that can help our suddenly conservative customers to spend in order to save or conserve their valuable assets. However, they still would be cautious about you if they didn't know you.

Right now, consumers across all income levels are responding to this troubled economy by cutting spending. The fact is that we are now marketing our services to consumers who simply don't want to spend, unless they have to.

But keep this in your mind, when they do, they're seeking out the best value for their money - - not necessarily the lowest price.

Beyond cutting back, consumers are shifting both their spending habits and their mindsets. In other words, the faces of our customers are changing. And, the way we market to them needs to change to as we work to attract these newly changed customers.

To prompt today's reluctant customers into action, we will have to spell out the both the value of using our services as well as the lack of risk.. We must also be sure we are offering services they want. Over the last decade, many of us have chosen to become single service operations as a means to maximize our profits. That service type may no longer work because of this new consumer attitude.

Consumers today want to know what they are getting for their money and they want to feel like they're getting value. And they do not trust easily. The financial institutions have seen to the destruction of trust in all but local small businesses in today business climate.

In today's market place, the most important function of your marketing must be to establish that you are (1st) trustworthy, (2nd) knowledgeable, and (3rd) capable.

The real-value, rather than simply the price, includes trust, and that is now the primary difference, and so it will remain long after the economy rebounds.

We should see this as the greatest opportunity of our business lives, because we are in the right business at the right time.