Bargains, bargains everywhere. Headlines in newspapers, on advertisements and across the tops of industry newsletters extol the plethora of bargains available on nearly everything imaginable; Real estate, classic automobiles, jewelry, electronics, hey, even Omaha Steaks are 50% off! One headline announced that baseball Hall-of-Famer, Len Dykstra, just lost his house he had listed for $24.95 million. He had dropped the selling price by nearly $10 million, but it still didn’t sell and went into foreclosure. Another personality, music producer Scott Storch, lost his $7.5 million house to a bank who bought it at auction for $5.5mm.

An Auto Union 1938 race car with a pedigree was expected to bring $20 million at the Bonham’s Auction, but the bidding never topped $6mm and it didn’t sell. Several other high-dollar collector cars in the same auction didn’t bring the expected prices either. A real estate flyer says, “It’s A Buyers Market,” offering reduced prices on most of their listings. Omaha Steaks, the purveyor of very fine beef and other meats, is offering a $225 package for half price including a free gift of some steak knives or something like that . . . and free shipping.

Why all the cut prices? Is it mostly due to the worldwide recession? The economy has tanked and companies are scrambling to move their products. There are some positive movements in the stock market, but we are a long way from being healed. What to do? Price cutting isn’t always a good answer.

Smaller companies can survive in these times, but they have to work smart, don’t waste money and be aggressive. There is still business out there, so go after a larger piece of the market. Expand your sales coverage; geographically, in product mix and into peripheral markets. Make your salespeople more effective; ramp up your customer services and utilize every type of media to promote your products and services. The “social media” is now being utilized by smart operators; YouTube, Facebook, Twitter are all marketing friendly and can be used to get your message out.

Sources of good data are another facet of business that must be explored. Smart operators are partnering with information gathering and screening companies who can find out who needs what and when. A flow of sales leads processed, screened and qualified can keep salespeople in front of more customers, leading to more sales. There is still business out there, but it has to be dug for. Aggressive, lean and mean companies will survive, even thrive during this recession.

Get out your shovel and dig a little deeper into this website and you will find a number of services that can go a long way towards getting you over this hump in our economy. Whether it is sales lead development, customer service outsourcing, database management, inbound and outbound call centers, TeleArk is in the business of making your company more efficient and cost effective, even more profitable.