What you can do to prevent this misunderstanding is to rephrase your question a bit. Do not use a yes-no question. You can ask, "What if we...", or "Is it possible for us to...", instead.

In business, if you ask something which is not possible to your partner, they will say "Yes", but won't do it anyway. They will probably even do it and suffer loss... Do I have to tell that you won't see this partner again?

One more example, there was a survey conducted by a Western academic researcher in China. The question was -- "Do you go to a .... church emple?", with Buddhist, Catholic, Taoist, etc. as choices. The result showed error because when they added number of Christians, Buddhists, Confucians, and Taoists together, total number was three times larger than sample size! This was because Chinese are spiritual, and ones who visit churches emples will visit more than one of them, researcher's assumption that a Buddhist will go only to Buddhist temple, etc. could not apply here. If question had just asked, "What is your religion?", result would be more accurate.

(Moreover... if we said we didn't go to such a good place, it'd make us look bad. So sometimes we lie. Problem with that? ;-)

It's hard to be creative when big expenses are breathing down your neck, and a recession is just time when you NEED to let your creativity show.

Advertise! The BIG mistake companies make during a recession is they let their marketing director go and cancel all their advertising. Intel did that back in recession of early 90's and later admitted it was a huge mistake. Competitors had a chance to market when Intel wasn't and grabbed a lot of their customers. Now smart thing to do is to take advantage of recession's lower ad rates and market, market, market. Your ad gets extra attention when competitors aren't advertising.

Business and economy go through natural up and down cycles. The Internet, which is a more pure type of market, goes up and down with even wilder cycles. Ride wave. Change your business as economy changes.

Look for what prospects need, for where they hurt, and offer helpful solutions that cut right to problem. You'll have a lot more customers and they will be grateful you are there to help in times that are less than best.

Kevin Nunley is Net's #1 copy writer. Thousands of businesses have relied on Kevin for quality sales letters, web site copy, ads, and press releases. You get sizzling copy in style you need, fast service, and affordable prices that are hard to beat. See http://DrNunley.com Reach Kevin at mailto:kevin@drnunley.com or 801-328-9006.