Climbers, skippers, and pilots internally want to hug the earth in difficult circumstances, but this is usually, exactly the wrong thing to do. Climbers need to push back from the rock face so their boot soles have the maximum traction. Skippers need to head offshore, away from the rocks, reefs, and solid earth. Pilots need to gain altitude, to give them space to maneuver and time.

Likewise, business owners, particularly small business owners who have their lives tied to the business, want to dig in and hide out until the economic storm has passed. But this is not necessarily the smart thing to do, to pull down your sign and hope for the best.

Here are six points to consider if you are a smaller business owner or manager in the Truckee-Tahoe-Reno area.
1. The total number of potential customers for your business may shrink for awhile. Therefore, you will be thinking clear if you spend your advertising money on the best prospects--e.g., those who have already made the decision to be in the area, rather than the ones who are considering Napa, Carmel, Disneyland....up coming up I-80 to the High Sierra.

There is an economic panic afoot in the USA and beyond. Consumer spending is down. But that doesn't mean no one is coming to, or at, Tahoe or Reno or Truckee in the months ahead.

According to North Lake Tahoe Resort Association (NLTRA) documents, there are typically over 2.5 million visitor-days per year to this area. Truckee-Tahoe-Reno is a half-day's drive to over 11 million people. Many will not forego winter or summer recreation in the High Sierra.

2. Getting your message to consumers now, while times are rough, can pay off handsomely over the longer run. When you establish a relationship with a consumer, particularly one who lives reasonably nearby, it can grow over time.

Everyone knows repeat business is much less expensive to cultivate than pure, new business, i.e., from strangers to your place, product, or service. Once you get a customer, you can build trust over time if you work at it steadily. You need to capture people for the first time…this coming winter is no exception. Concentrate. Take action.

It is easy--and I feel it, too, periodically--to think that there will be no “longer run.” If you are convinced of this, read no farther! But the facts don't support this idea. In the last hundred years the USA has been through depressions, floods, wars, downturns, Democrats, Republicans, hurricanes, dot-com busts fueled by greed, mis-information, and the incompetence and/or corruption of politicians of all stripes at all levels. As someone said long ago: “This, too, shall pass.” We gotta believe.

3. Take the lead and reach out with your business message. Recognize that everyone is hurting to some degree. The economic malaise is an epidemic, the first one of its kind to many of us. Don't hide your light under a bushel basket of fear.

If you have an attractive restaurant, retail business, resort, or service, be a lighthouse in the dark night. Let people know what you have and where to find it. Those who are up, or who came up the hill, are going to eat, drink, buy, ski, and re-create themselves, bum economy or not. And it may be on the uptick by the time serious snow flies again.

4. Don't try business as usual. No one is oblivious to the obvious. Change is in the air. People will respond to thoughtful, creative come-ons, particularly those that resonate with price/value propositions.

You may need to tweak your website. For example, add video to your site to really tell your story in a way that engages your customers. Video on the web is the wave of the future that is already here. You may also need to freshen your copy. Are you still touting material the same age as your website?

5. Buy local yourself. Support other owners/businesses. Spend your marketing dollars in local media to reach locals and visitors who are here, ready to participate. Visitors (and residents, of course) seek out multiple facets of the community. NLTRA documents say that the average visitor stay is over three nights. Data from Reno says about the same thing for Reno visitors. If there are vacant spots in the total experience, a given consumer may be prone to choose Napa Valley or Las Vegas or…for their next trip away from home base. They need to make their regular home away from home The Truckee/Tahoe/Reno area--summer and winter, and the shoulder seasons as well.

6. We're still number one. Lake Tahoe was recently ranked the number one U.S. destination byTrip Advisor. That's a solid message to relay and rally behind. This region is multi-season, multi-attraction, multi-everything. This is a good place to be, regardless. People are going to come; let's work together to put out the welcome mat. As Ben Franklin put it: “We must hang together, or else we each hang separately.”