Ten Business Resolutions for 2009

Mary Neumeier maintains a great (and free!) online resource called Neutron which deals with marketing and business strategy issues. In addition to his day job, Neumeier has also written a couple of very visual books on brand development - The Brand Gap and Zag. I recommend both.

Anyway. His last newsletter had ten problem/response style resolutions to help you with your business woes in 2o09. Here they are:

2008 Problem

2009 Resolution

Overcoming reduced budgets

Think more, spend less

Protecting profit margins

Increase your “onliness”

Safely extending brands

Avoid the four Cs of extension

Repositioning the company

Harness the “competition cycle”

Fostering broad-based loyalty

Tune up your ecosystem

Finding profitable new markets

Analyze powerful new trends

Predicting returns on innovation

Screen for “good and different”

Increasing brand efficiency

Integrate your marketing team

Collaborating across silos

Start an internal brand program

Communicating our value

Create a messaging hierarchy

Each of the resolutions link to their article and I'd recommend spending a few minutes skimming the ones that interest. I think resolution #1 is especially sage and shouldn't be reserved for times of recession. 

Enjoy!