Our natural inclination in times like this is to look for ways to cut costs. One way to do this is to target unnecessary or unproductive programs or services. Even though green-related ventures may not yet be your top producers, don’t give them the boot quite yet. Your company can benefit from more eco-friendly practices in more ways than you might imagine.

First of all, if you are looking for ways to cut expenditures, how about recycling and reusing wherever possible? Look for ways to reduce the amount of materials used; in other words, conserve and reuse. Not only can instilling some more eco-friendly practices into your daily routines help your bottom line, but offering green building to your customers may potentially help your business to grow.

There is an emerging trend amongst younger homebuyers that consider green living of the utmost importance to them, and they need a builder who is knowledgeable about and able to accomplish LEED standards.

So, not only can you save money by implementing more eco-friendly practices within your business, but you can tap into a growing market and have the potential to grow your business, recession or not. Sustainability could very well be your best defense against this recession.

That’s nice, you might be saying, but how’s that going to help me get more leads and increase both my revenues and profits? Between offering this series and receiving your comments back to me, it’s my goal that we all expand our lead generation knowledge – that should increase your leads, your revenue, and your profits. Even if you only implement a couple of ideas and you increase your business, you’ll be ahead, right?

The topics I’ve selected are:

• Multi-channel Marketing (Which Is Your Pizza Order? ½ Pepperoni – ½ Cheese or Is It a Super Supreme™?)
• Tracking (or Knowing What’s Wasting Your Money & Stopping It)
• Testing, Testing, Testing (or Knowing What’s Making You More Money & Doing More of It)
• Forecasting (Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan)
• Event Marketing (It’s Not Just Homeshows Any More!)
• Knowing Who Your Customer Is (You Might Find Some Surprises)
• The Bermuda /Marketing Triangle (Your Foundation For Advertising)
• Referrals & Cross-selling
• Direct Mail (It’s Only “Junk” If You’re Doing It Wrong)
• Co-ops (Share the Cost, but Stand Out from the Pack)
• Print Media / Magazines
• Internet – The Not-So-New Frontier (3 weekly segments)
• Broadcast Media
• Newspapers (Yes, Virginia, They Are Still Around)
• Yellow Pages
• Alternate or Out-of-Home Advertising
• Telemarketing (Do It Right and You’ll Never Be on Their DNC List)

We’re planning a topic every 2 weeks or so. Just keep checking back, and I’ll let you know before a weekly topic series starts so you don’t miss out.

This column is geared to help you grow your business, so please reach out to me if you see areas of interest that I haven’t mentioned. I’ll do my best to answer each communication, but please don’t take it personally if I miss one of yours.

“Welcome Strange Ideas. ‘The human mind,’ notes scientist W.I. Beveridge, ‘likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and resists it with a similar energy.’ How do you react to new ideas? With a scowl or a constructive attitude? Build on unusual ideas. Opportunity is around the corner.” – Roger von Oech, Creative Think and author of “A Whack on the Side of the Head” and “A Kick in the Seat of the Pants.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family! And please remember, “Keep Your Attitude Half-Full, not Half-Empty!”

John Clements is a Direct Response / Lead Generation Marketing consultant.
www.ClementsMktgGroup.com