by Kevin Nunley http://DrNunley.com

People all over North America are telling me business is slow. "I can't say there isn't any business," Bob confides. "It's just that it's darned difficult to get sales. I have to work three times as hard just to get a small order."

Even though experts say our economy is still strong, most people agree we're in a recession. Many of us charged up our cards in 90s and don't feel much like buying anything we don't have to have. Others feel a little depressed about future and just don't want to spend anything to make their lives better or more successful.

Hey, I understand. Hardly anybody feels as adventurous as we did a few years ago in go-go '90s. But that doesn't mean we should roll up our tent and slink out of town.

THERE'S LOTS OF MONEY TO BE MADE!--even in a recession. Here are several ways to capitalize on recession and move your business or career forward no matter what.

Start by cutting prices. It's old law of supply and demand. When there is less demand for what we sell, it's time to drop price. Emphasize several low cost products or services that will appeal to thrifty.

I dropped prices recently at my site. I just leveled with people, told them that times were tight and I wanted to make my services available to everyone without putting them into more debt. Customers responded with overwhelming enthusiasm. Sales, which had been slow, suddenly became brisk.

Why not? It may turn out that your preferences aren't as widely shared as you think they are. And there may be important practical considerations that you haven't factored in yet. Before making your final decision on this question, consider these points:

* Perceived value may be higher for a tangible item than for a downloaded one, particularly if product is durably and attractively bound.

* On other hand, a download may offer much higher perceived value because information is thereby immediately available.

* Printed and bound information may be less likely to get copied and redistributed than a download that is not copy protected.

* Your target market may not feel comfortable with process of downloading files, or may have so many technical problems opening and reading download that customer service headaches quickly mount up.

* If you want to provide another kind of item along with text, such as audio or video tapes, a print catalog or an object, such as a calculate-your-mortgage wheel or meatloaf pan, print format makes more sense.

* When it would be nice for people to be able to click on Web addresses right from your text, a download may seem like optimal choice.

* Fraud rates for downloadable products are very much higher than for products that get sent by mail.

* You can gather a valuable, valid postal mailing list when selling tangible items to be shipped or mailed, but addresses are less reliable for download sales.

Now let me say a little more about a few of factors above.

First, fraud is indeed a very serious problem for products bought and received immediately online. Not only does merchant almost always get stuck with a loss when a customer disputes an online charge, if rate of "chargebacks" - sales reversed because of customer protest - gets too high, merchant can lose his or her credit-card processing account and find it next to impossible to secure another one. On other hand, established third-party digital download services have address checking and fraud detection procedures in place that may not be as available to individual merchants.