This guest post comes from Matthew Mamet, Director of Product Marketing at local online video platform company PermissionTV. In the past, Matthew was President of local Internet Marketing company Embarc before its sale to Garfield Group of Philadelphia. In addition to using online video and social media tools to spread the word about PermissionTV, Matthew also blogs about local Internet based companies at www.InternetTechBoston.com.  You can always find and talk to him on Twitter @msmamet.

In the current economy every business is looking for ways to slash costs. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (aka FUD) has set in. FUD has taken up shop in the corner office of many businesses - both large and small. But, FUD is not a great leader. FUD instructs otherwise intelligent people do un-intelligent things. Rather than let FUD run amok and lay waste to all costs (both necessary and unnecessary) on your balance sheet, take a deep breath and determine which business activities will result in a healthier bottom line. That’s what matter’s most - the bottom line, not the costs it takes to achieve it.

I’ve seen two down economies in my professional career so far - in 2001 when I was helping to build a fledgling Internet Marketing company, and now - when I’m helping to building an emerging SaaS company. Both then and now, the team I was part of became successful at building our companies where others failed. There are many factors that go into a successful business, not the least of which is luck. Regardless, one of the keys to achieving a healthier bottom line in a down economy is to outsource as much of your business activities - not to people, but to software. In other words, determine the best ways to operationalize your business and make it more efficient by using software or online tools to do the work for you. Have a team of telemarketers making a few hundred outbound calls a day? Replace them with a well-designed and search optimized website and let your prospects find you instead. Have someone who’s job it is to manage all your contacts and sales opportunities? Replace them with an online Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool like Salesforce.

When reading this advice of “spend money to save money”, many people get confused. But, you’ve probably heard of this before - work smarter, not harder. Or, as Will Herman, an entrepreneur much more successful than myself, recently advised against in a blog post, “The knee-jerk reaction is often to overcompensate, tightening down the business too much and in too many ways so it becomes ineffective and unable to move.” Both Will and I are cautioning against letting FUD run your business. Instead, examine everything closely for the value they provide. Businesses that are built fundamentally strong and have a culture of metrics-based decision making will be able to surgical cut those programs or behaviors that are not providing enough value to the organization.

One of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce overall costs is to use an internal business wiki. Much like the all-knowing, talking computer onboard Star Trek’s USS Enterprise, your wiki fast becomes the place to go to find answers. When is the next sales meeting? Check the wiki. How do I contact Sally from accounting when she’s working from home? Check the wiki. How do I use the new CRM that we just implemented to save money? Check the wiki. In the exact same way that Wikipedia has become the defacto source of answers for the internet world, your company’s wiki becomes the place for your employees to learn how to be the best team they can be. A culture that is committed to knowledge sharing aggregates the  knowledge of all the people on that team and operationalizes the processes that are central to your business. Think of the power such a thing provides. You are essentially transplanting and cross-pollinating all employees with the knowledge of all others. When a new member of the team comes on board, he or she immediately has the benefit of all the shared wisdom of the current team and all those who came before. How much value does this provide? In this down economy, you can’t afford NOT to have a wiki.

Looking to your external audience, customers and prospects, it is imperative to have a strong website for them to learn about your company. I could write a whole slew of posts on what defines a “good website,” but at a high level you want a clean, clear, easy to read website that tells visitors who you are, what you do, and the compelling reason to buy your products or services. There should be multiple ways for visitors to convert into leads by filling out web forms and contacting you. These “Contact Us” forms should be integrated with your CRM system. A well designed, search optimized site is generating new leads for your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your customers should have a section of your website built for them, too. Build a “Frequently Asked Questions,” (FAQ) about your product or service, and explain the ways for customers to contact you for support. Better yet, include a public wiki in your Customer Support section and allow your customers to answer each other’s questions and provide valuable feedback on how you’re doing. Outsource customer support to your customers.

Regardless if your business’ core is web technology, or a traditional brick and mortar - don’t build these systems yourself. Don’t manage these systems either. Combined with the ever decreasing prices for disk space and online hosting, one of the huge benefits of the down economy is that online software and service providers have slashed their own prices to end consumers. Again - look at the value that an outsourced provider can bring, vs. trying to save a few bucks and manage systems in house. Is you or your team’s time better spent tinkering with a non-supported open source software package, or doing their jobs and running the business? If your company knowledgebase and public website become as important to the running of your business as I’ve stated they are, you probably want them maintained and cared for by professionals whose job it is to make sure they are avaiable 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s actually pretty easy to put value on that kind of piece of mind.

Making financial decisions when money is tight is not easy. But, when you’re allowing Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt to guide your actions, it’s doubly hard. Spend on the things that provide an adequate return on your investment. Do not fall into the trap of spending your valuable time working on things that are not directly related to your core business or function. Find a good service provider, instead. Those who follow those “golden rules” have a very good chance of making it out of these turbulent times unscathed. Of course, a little luck doesn’t hurt, either.