So perhaps these aren’t the best of times. Business is off and you’re feeling a bit frantic. You wonder if you should slash prices across the board, make new offers, lay off staff, or just hibernate until Spring ‘09. First of all, realize you are not alone. A great number of business owners nationwide are facing these same questions and challenges. But what to do?

My advice would be to get clear.

“Get clear?” you ask incredulously.  “That’s it?”

Yes. Get really, really clear.

It’s at these times of duress that we tend to get reactive. It’s like the old saying about the politician, who having lost his objective, redoubles his efforts. If we are not clear, and if we’ve lost our sense of direction, how does going faster help? What typically happens is that we take on the wrong type of work, from the wrong type of clients, all at a deep discount, stay busy for the sake of busy work, make little to no profit and go nowhere. Not much of a plan eh?

What if you took slower times in business as an opportunity to get focused? Here’s another way to look at it. If you were a lumber jack and your ax blade had become dull, you could either decide to keep swinging harder, or you could take time out to sharpen your ax. For many business owners this seems threatening. They feel they don’t have time to sharpen their ax, they have to pay the bills, make calls, stay busy. But in the end they swing with a dull ax and get nowhere, working harder and harder with less and less to show for it. And they also get exhausted. Sound familiar?

On the other hand, what if you took time to hone your message. Perhaps you have a confusing business name that communicates one thing, a tag line that doesn’t match, an outdated web site, three versions of your logo, a blog that sits idle and a newsletter that’s still on the “to do” list. You’ve been so busy the past few years reacting to business, you haven’t had the time or the need to keep your brand message clear, concise and compelling. In fact, it’s gotten down right fuzzy. Now is the perfect time to go through a brand audit… a review of just where you are now in the market, and where you want to be. Does your current image, message, and product offerings all line up? Are they speaking with one voice? Or are you pushing quality products here, low prices there, touting your service extraordinaire, and introducing a baffling array of new ideas and goods in hopes that something, anything, will “stick.”

Here’s one simple test. Can you communicate your basic brand message in a matter of three to four words?

What if you took one day out of your schedule to simply relax and observe. Don’t try to figure things out, or reason, or solve, or react, — just observe what’s going on. Don’t think… feel. A walk in nature is a great place for this type of exercise. Smell the earth, watch the leaves, hear the sound of water. Then ask yourself, “Why am I in business?” What is your real motivation? Does it reflect your vision, passion and direction? If you walked into this business today, and it wasn’t yours, how would you feel about it? Does it convey a sense of purpose, mission and direction? What seems to fit and what doesn’t belong? Now might be the time to streamline and unify your business, your passion and your message into one cohesive brand. A brand that stands for something singular. And if that were so, what would that one thing be? Can you get it down to three words? One word?

You can take time to get clear. Or blindly redouble your efforts.

You can take time to sharpen your ax. Or just keep swinging a dull one harder.

When it comes to moving forward, clarity can be a real confidence booster. Your decisions will be then based on insight, and will energize you. You’ll recognize what builds your message and avoid what scatters it. You’ll act with focus and purpose. And in times like these, that’s not just smart… it’s brilliant.