Are you a glass half full or a glass half empty type of person? In particular, your perspective on the business environment will impact the kind of marketing you attempt for your company. If you are waiting to put marketing into motion until a better day, you may have created a marketing scenario that will kill your business.

In recent weeks, the future of our economy got some good news and some bad news. Depending upon who you are listening to, we may be in complete recovery mode or headed for the next recession. It appears that real estate is starting to pick itself up off of the mat. However, will the Fed keep interest rates low (currently lending at 0%) or will they bump the rate up to control inflation in the housing market? There is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding Obamacare and its implementation. July 1 was a hard deadline for the new definition of full and part time workers (FT redefined to 30+ hours per week) and a mandate for businesses to carry healthcare benefits for FT employees - that is until it became an election issue and was postponed for another year. Are we pulling out of hard times or are we going to see another downturn? If you are waiting for the perfect moment to ramp up your marketing efforts, you might be fooled by what you are envisioning the perfect scenario to look like. Marketing should not be something we turn on and off. Marketing helps a company stay alive and adapt during any economic situation.

It reminds me of a story about a pet parrot. The parrot, sitting in his cage inside his master's house, looked out the window one day and saw a bluebird sitting in a tree. "That is the life," the parrot thought to himself. "That bluebird can fly anywhere he wants. He can fly around the world if he so desires. He is not confined to a cage. He can eat whenever he desires, he can roost in any tree he wishes. No one is the master of the bluebird," the envious parrot thought to himself. At the same time, the bluebird was lighting on a branch peering into the window at the parrot. The bluebird thought to himself, "Now that is the life! That parrot lives in safety in that cage. He has never had to worry about a predator lurking in the shadows ready to kill him in any given moment. He never has to forage for food. Every day his master brings food to his cage. He doesn't have to build a nest or fly thousands of miles to escape the cold of the fall nor retrace his flight to come back in the spring. The parrot's life is the best," thought the jealous bluebird. One day the master left the window open and the cage door unlocked. When the parrot discovered this, he quickly made his escape - out of the cage and through the window to freedom. Likewise, the bluebird discovered the open window and flew into the house, for he had sensed that the weather was turning colder. He found the cage unoccupied and perched on the little swing hanging from the top of it. That night the weather turned cold and covered everything with frost. The parrot froze to death perched in the same place he had flown in the tree outside the window. The next morning the bluebird woke to find a cat staring at him from outside the cage. The bluebird took to flight, but found that he could not move more than a few inches in every direction. Frantically, the bluebird crashed into the stiff wires of the cage walls again and again until he bludgeoned himself to death trying to escape.

It may be time to take a different perspective of marketing. Marketing is not a spigot that you turn on and off. Although, you do need to make adjustments. I recommend coming up with a plan based on your target market and your current customers. Then constantly be measuring your success. At the very least, you should review your plan annually. I prefer to do measurements monthly or quarterly, depending upon your customers' buying trends. A good marketing plan will help you adjust to your present situation, a strong or soft market, customers who are ready to turn loose of their money or those who are sitting on their wallets. Marketing helps make you successful regardless of the situation.