More Info and Links To Help You Grow Your Bottom Line in 60 Days:

What Are Your Top 3 Goals This Year? – Without clear goals, its hard to achieve as you don’t know where you are headed. There are many ways to get there. I like writing your top 3. Research shows if you DON’T write them down, odds of achieving them drops 80%. Write them down NOW!

Tool #1 - Sell more! Here are some good resources
How to sell more during the meltdown
Tips to Sell more online
More online tips, how Customers Help You Sell More

Tool #2 – Open New Relationships – Who could really benefit from your product or service? Write down 10 possible relationships that can directly be a customer or indirectly bring you customers.

Tool #3 – Reduce Costs, NOW! This list of 51 Cost Cutting tips is 15 years old yet still very relevant.

Tool #4 – Increase your marketing budget – How much should you spend? Here are some examples and ratios

I’m a bit biased towards the Internet given my background however I think there are huge opportunities to use social media to profile yourself, company and solutions to the market for free.
1) Check out Twitter. If you don’t know about it see this get started NYT article Once you’re on board you may want a tool to manage your activities. TweetSum is good as is Tweetdeck
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

2) Grow your social media database and network
3) Repurpose your aticles, info and opinions. Here’s how to do it.

Tool #5 – Get FREE publicity. Why? It makes you an expert, gives you and your product credibility, gets you leverage to speak at trade events (see Tool #6), oh yeh, and its FREE!! Here are some examples of how a simple product – a family guide for video games – got 2 primetime TV spots on NBC.

What does free publicity look like? Check these out:
NBC11 San Francisco Bay Area Morning Show Interview With Laura Garcia Cannon

Interview with Silicon Valley Business’ Brian Banmiller

Tool #6 – Attend an industry conference or trade show. Go find one now. Enough said.

Tool #7 - Upsell Your Customers and see what KISS’ Gene Simmons says about a being a rockstar and an entrepreneur

Tool #8 - Offer free tips, how to’s and newsletters to your audience. It can make money. A client built his entire lead generation business on this free education guide and its bringing in customers at an amazing pace. At GameDaily, we offered a free survey of gamers’ habits as an abstract and our partner, a polling company, sold the complete survey. It was a win-win for both of us, got us attention, credibility and a non-sales item for our sales team to discuss with clients.

Tool #9 - How do you get great sales people? You grow and train them. Everyone needs training and coaching – even Tiger Woods does – and he has 3 coaches! . Your team WILL benefit.
I like these guys:
1) Jack Daly – frequent EO speaker
2) Hutwaithe – the folks behind Spin Selling
3) Our SF EO colleague Tom Batchelder’s firm Perficency
4) Jim Collins – The man behind “Good to Great.” One of the top management gurus. This is a good diagnostics tool that’s free to print out.
5) Marcus Buckingham – I really like Discover Your Strengths. We did that program while I was at AOL and it was great.

Tool #10 - Get Healthy! Big take away, diet matters. The wrong stuff gets you sick, the right stuff makes you clear, focused and healthy. A great health, diet and information resource in one place I personally like Dr Mark Hyman’s books especially UltraMetabolism and the companion cookbook.
Family time is a HUGE benefit for you and your loved ones. TURN OFF the Blackberry, close the laptop and BECOME Present. If you haven’t read it, I strongly suggest The Power of Now. It helps us all, especially entrepreneurs, get some perspective and literally smell the roses.

It’s no secret that times are tough and the economy’s problems are impacting many industries. We have been blessed to be part of the high growth games industry and specifically the online games industry that has seen explosive growth. But if things are so good in our industry, why are studios closing, publishers losing money and people getting laid off? What can you do to make sure your company makes it? The climate has changed, things are tougher and now more than ever there are opportunities for you to win big.

Its tough out there and you can do it. Here are some reflections on the changing business climate and a few ideas and steps you can implement at your company today to help you succeed.

1. Accept the Current Situation. If you’re fearful, admit it. How long will your cash last? If you’re not sure, find out today. Don’t get caught in the headlights. Now is the time to come up with a plan that leads you to the top. Just because we get paid to make games and have fun doesn’t make us recession proof. Like any business, we need to create great products and experiences for our customers.
2. Get Focused – What does your business do better than anyone else? What differentiates you and why will you win? Huddle with your team so you’re all on the same page. Set very clear goals for your business and measure your progress weekly.
3. Do the Math – Look at your finances. Do you need more funding, how much, when and why? Are you profitable and if not, when? Times are tough and venture capitalists won’t fund anything just because it’s an online game, tool or virtual worlds. They will ask you to do more with less. Get ahead of them – you must have a focused value proposition and clear plan to make money. Your cash flow statement is your bible, review it weekly.
4. Eliminate “Nice to Have” Stuff – A company I was talking with at CES told me of their 3 great interconnected services to help improve online gamers’ experiences yet only 1 of these made money. They had just done a VC raise and the other services were draining cash. Did they really need the other 2 for the first to succeed? No, but the CEO loved the idea of all 3 things together. To win you first need to survive. Cut anything you can’t afford or is losing money.
5. Build your Dream Team Now – There’s lots of great talent available out there. If your business is on a winning track, find some A-list people to hire (full time or as consultants) today. Show them loyalty and commitment and you’ll be handsomely rewarded. Be honest with your existing team and be clear on your goals and what needs to be achieved. Great people will rise to the occasion, weak people drop out.
6. Get Some Help – Talk to your board, advisors, VCs, competitors, colleagues. Tap into your community’s knowledge base. Many people have been there before and can help. Ask your team for input. Take some quiet time to work “on your business” instead of “in your business” where it’s non-stop fire drills. Consider a mentor or a coach.
7. Love Your Customers! If you’re a B2B company, ask your clients what you can do to help them. Come up with an idea to help them improve their business results. Solutions will get you more business. If you’re a consumer company, pay close attention to what they are doing in your game. Competition is brutal – a recent article found more than 200 online kids’ games alone were now in some phase of development. If your product is great and you show users the love, they will love back twice as much. Give them an opportunity to be your “story teller” through social networks, referral programs and increased visibility and status.
8. Get Strong – Look at opportunities to grow with investments, acquisitions and mergers. Prices have come down and there are deals for the leaders with bold vision. One of my clients has been successful adding to their development efforts by acquiring several small, talented teams who were startups but realized they wanted focus on their work, not trying to build a company.
9. Make Some Noise! – Some companies choose to reduce their marketing and ad budgets. There are several opportunities for you to get noticed in this market with smart advertising, marketing and PR. Here are a few ideas: http://bx.businessweek.com/advertising-in-a-recession/
10. Don’t Forget What’s Really Important, Have Some Fun! – Give yourself and your team time to relax and have fun. Get exercise, try to eat better make quality time with your loved ones. Though this may sound counter-intuitive, these things will help you stay calm, focused and powered up.

In conclusion, sure the climate has changed. That gives us more opportunities to be creative. We’ll need to be better, faster and more valuable to our customers. We are part of an innovative fun industry with unlimited growth potential. If we stay focused on our passion and think about why we love inventing new things, pushing the envelope and creating new ways to entertain the world we can deal even with the biggest challenges. That passion combined with a realistic plan should help us weather the new climate and position ourselves to level up to meet the coming challenges.

Mark has founded and sold 3 companies including VCast (to Verizon Wireless), GameDaily (to AOL) and Sweden’s first chain of cookie stores. He is a partner in Worlds and Games LLC and is coaching CEOs and top executives on growing successful businesses. He is a frequently invited speaker and panelist on entertainment, games and business topics at industry events including AdTech, OMMA, CES, E3, IMedia, Digital Hollywood, Digital Media Wire, EMA, MI6, Tech Council of So Cal, Game Supply Academy and other events. He lives with his wife and 2 boys in the Bay Area and can be reached at markfriedler@gmail.com