Are you getting involved?

Getting involved with your community and for those of us who work from home just getting out of the house and in front of people can be the best thing. What am I doing? Besides the monthly Moses Lake Chamber events, there's the Moses Lake Lioness, a service organization associated with the Lions Clubs, Power Partners of Grant County, a referral group that meets for lunch twice a month, the Moses Lake Business Association, Habitat for Humanity, my husband is on the board, and I'm involved with the upcoming Moses Lake Spring Festival. Gosh...is that everything? We're also trying to plan a trip away from home and drive back to the Midwest, trying to find a few days to do so was challenging.

Seems like this time of year there is so much going on. Today and this weekend my husband and I will be volunteering our time with the Moses Lake Lioness serving up Spaceburgers at the Moses Lake Spring Home & Garden Show being held at the fairgrounds. It's a little chilly today but spring is definitely in the air. What are Spaceburgers? These famous sandwiches have been a mainstay at the Grant County Fairgrounds since 1960. It's a pocket sandwich with a very secret sauce. I've never actually had one, this weekend will have to be my first...I'll have to report back later.

Should I cut my advertising during these uncertain times?

Times are tough, everyone is watching their advertising budget. The reaction always is to cut advertising, trust me, I know, I worked in the corporate world and our budget was the first to be reduced during slow times. Unfortunately, cutting advertising all together is the quickest way to go from slow sales to no sales. Rather than eliminate your advertising focus more on targeting your message directly to your customers. Choose the right media for your business and then you can insure you're making a smart decision with your advertising dollars. Advertise where your prospects look first. If you don't know where they're looking, ask them. This is valuable information. From this you can learn which media touch them the most often, is it the newspaper? The radio? Email? The internet? Knowing this information will allow you to strategically place advertising that will reach your customers. And, when you go to place your ads make sure you're getting the most bang for your buck. Sometimes it pays to scale back the quantity of smaller ads and go for frequency and size. A larger ad run a minimum of 3 times may get more recognition and response to a much smaller ad that may be missed.