So often, we see small business people who need to cut costs because they find that their businesses are in trouble. The first thing they do is cut marketing dollars and their commitment to allocate resources towards marketing. This can be a mistake and if you cut your marketing to the bone you may not receive the new customer base you need to accelerate your business forward and therefore you will stagnate.

You must commit marketing dollars and allocation of resources if you wish to win the market. If you wish to stay in business you'll need to grow your company with new customers and more inflows. Simply cutting expenses without increasing revenue is only playing on one side of the profit and loss statement. You must budget marketing dollars and that is essential to winning.

You cannot stay in business by turning off your marketing completely. Nor should you try. You need to commit the money that is necessary to make sure that you stay in the minds of your potential customers with a simple message that is compelling.

Too many small businesses when they get into trouble will cut their marketing budgets by half or by 100 percent and then experience downward spiral in the business until finally they decay in orbit and burn up into bankruptcy. Please do not make this mistake and be careful how you allocate your marketing dollars and make sure that you can deliver your message to the customer effectively and efficiently. Think of this in 2006.