Starting a small business in tough economic times
On Investopedia, Katie Adams gives some advice for startups regarding financing, marketing, bootstrapping, and more. “Technology can provide you with numerous ways to save money and increase profits. For example: Expand your market by selling through multiple online channels. Do email marketing instead of more expensive electronic or print advertising. Use websites like Entrepreneur.com, Score.com, BusinessInfoGuide.com or bizSugar.com to get ideas from fellow entrepreneurs and successful business leaders. Optimize your website for search engines to keep your site coming up at the top of your customers’ searches. Produce affordable marketing vehicles like podcasts or webinars through your website. Create an online customer loyalty program offering advanced notices of sales, discounts, referral bonuses and coupons.”

The Opportunity Clinic – 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession
In Part 2 of a series on business management, Walter Derzko focuses on innovation and efficiency in his blog, Smart Economy. “Firms that simultaneously engage in a high degree of both innovation and efficiency follow an approach that is often referred to in the academic business literature as an ambidextrous strategy. Surprisingly, relatively few firms are able to balance these two approaches. Internal battles for resources often tip the scales in favor of efficiency over innovation, or vice versa. Management gurus frequently warn that simultaneously pursuing both can set the firm up for mediocre performance, yet the turbulent nature of today’s markets, cut-throat competition and despiration and anxiety from the recession create a renewed need for firms to reconsider this dual approach for longer-term success.”

How to survive this economic crisis
Jan Norman, with a few tips on how small businesses can make it through the current economic storm. “Improve lead generation process to find new potential customers. Find ways to get more repeat business from old customers. Encourage customers to add on products, services or related items. Create special promos, such as buy two get one free. Increase prices where possible. Watch successful competitors prices to stay on par.”

Tips to help grow your business in this economy
Not content on just surviving? Stacy Karacostas of SmallBusinessNewz shares her insights on how to thrive and expand despite the financial environment. “Don’t operate in a vacuum. Consumer behaviors are changing radically, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t buying. It just means they are thinking longer and harder before making a purchase instead of just throwing cash around like it grows on trees. You need to understand what your customers want now and find a way to deliver it. So talk to clients to learn what’s most important to them right now; whether you call ‘em on the phone, do an email survey, or troll online message boards.”

The Green Collar Economy
Direct Democracy’s Shai Sachs features Van Jones’ best-selling book on the environment and the economy. “The central insight of The Green Collar Economy is that we can revive our economy, especially the most critically downtrodden and depressed parts of our economy, while saving the environment. The trick is to emphasize economic growth that is oriented around environmentally sound initiatives – using clean energy, sustainable food practices, and so on. Moreover, it is critically important for this growth to focus on those individuals who have historically not been a part of the environmental movement, especially low-income families and minorities – not just as a matter of economic inclusiveness, but also because no other approach will be effective in saving the planet.”

The adoption-based music economy
Ailing industries may have an answer to their woes. Matt Asay of CNet News looks at two promising business models for digital content, both of which embrace the realities of the Internet Age. “[Gerd] Leonhard argues that digitization has made a control-based music economy impossible, forcing the industry to seek other ways to monetize music–ways that conform to digitization’s abundance, rather than to the old idea of scarcity.”

How Not to Stimulate the Economy
Greg Mankiw, the Harvard economics professor and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, compares, on his blog, some of the goverment’s fiscal policy options. “The moral of the story: If the government spends a fiscal stimulus package on goods and services without much public value (as in Case C), it could well stimulate the economy as measured by macroeconomic aggregates but leave the participants in the economy worse off (compared with a feasible alternative, Case A). Avoiding this trap requires that the government spend taxpayers dollars only those items that pass a strict cost-benefit test. That is hard to do quickly. Willy-nilly spending is a good way to stimulate the economy only if the outcome is judged by the wrong metric.”

Why starting a business in a bad economy is a great idea
A firm believer that every cloud has a silver lining, Invesp’s Samantha Gonzales argues that when it comes to taking chances, there’s no better time than now. “Nothing is really certain in business, and anticipating your competitors’ next moves can be difficult. This is especially true in a shaky economy. But having an online business means that you have a direct line to your competitors and can check them out all day, every day if you want to. You might even be able to beat them to the proverbial punch by minutes. Many business owners will make the mistake of believing that they don’t have to put as much effort into keeping tabs on their competition in a slow economy, since everyone is being affected in the same way. Rather, this is the most important time to keep apprised about what others are doing. A shaky economy means that businesses are left teetering and that their movements, just like their presences, aren’t set in stone. If you keep a keen eye on the competition, you can simultaneously take advantage of their many woes and add their small successes to yours.”