I don’t think even the biggest optimists out there will challenge the assumption that we’re in a recession now.  Hard to look at the stock market, here or abroad, and deny that.  So what is an entrepreneur to do?  Selling can be pretty hard normally, and during a recession it can be even more challenging.

Have you ever thought about how an entrepreneur diversifies?  Not their financial investments, but their company.  if you've not thought about it, you should!

Naming is integral to branding and to your overall strategy and mission, and this is no easy task. With a financial crisis looming, doing it right is critical to your success. 

Before you name your business, products or services, it’s wise to have the answers to many questions – most of which you have already dealt with if you’ve written a business and/or marketing plan.

You’ll need to have all your major stakeholders in mind: customers, the public, investors, etc.

With all the programs and conferences about social media, social networking and new media for business, one thing I almost missed, and perhaps you did too, was that on June 26, 2008, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), overseer of domain naming, announced a relaxation of its policies.

With the markets in retreat, banks failing or getting eaten up, and global credit tighter than it has been in recent memory, what is an entrepreneur to do?  And what might the future hold for entrepreneurs?

So your startup is getting going and you need to get your marketing going.  But it sure can be expensive.  It'll cost you cash (thus equity), time, and potentially misplaced distraction.  And does it really work? 

Marketing is one of the most important yet least understood management sciences.  Great marketing drives sales, increases brand perception (thus possibly giving you pricing power), and can really make a difference in your competitiveness versus the competition.  But many companies, especially early stage companies, waste a lot of money on misdirected marketing.

We all see it time and time again - companies chasing a fad.  Or maybe not a fad, but they are chasing "group think" - a broad consensus that a market is ripe for the picking, when in reality it is unproven.

Take for example the incredible rise in CLEC's in the mid 90's (competitive local exchange carriers).  So many companies were formed to go after the deregulated telco market.  But in the end, the infrastructure costs combined with the reluctance of business customers to change carriers led to the demise of virtually every one of them.

I see it often - in their marketing and sales efforts, companies "tell" their prospects what they "need to know".  I have bad news -- they don't care.

You've heard it perhaps a thousand times before:  Tell prospects about your features and benefits.  Make them understand how great you are.  Heck, you built it, so be sure to tell them about all the cool features and capabilities of your product.  But in the end, they just don't care.  I'll bet you a nice steak dinner that the majority of time that companies present their solution, many of the prospects in the room are daydreaming about their weekend plans or how much work they have to do that day.

I work very hard.  I work like crazy.  I work obsessively. Wait, scratch that last one.  I try not to work obsessively because it make me less productive and less effective.  Why is that?

Like most entrepreneurs, part of the price (and joy) of being an entrepreneur is the challenge that comes with working in a job with no real bounds, no end point, and no finish line.  Sure, many other folks work quite hard as well (you know who you are), but as a job class, few folks work harder than entrepreneurs.

But how hard do you work?  Where do you draw the line?