Business owner and CEO talk about the current economy and the steps they are taking to remain successful

By Tom Barry - Contributing Writer - Atlanta Business Chronicle

ATLANTA, GA - September 8, 2008 - Flexibility has been the key for leading Atlanta Web Design firm Solar Velocity, LLC’s success amid the soft economy. As a result, business for the 21-employee firm, which specializes in marketing and Web technologies, is up 20 percent over last year.

CO-founder and CEO Jason Swenk said the Atlanta-based web development, design and marketing company has widened its focus over the years, moving away from real estate and mortgage Web sites into such areas as building e-commerce sites for retail clients.

“Even in a bad market, there’s always going to be a good market for someone,” Swenk says. “With skyrocketing gas prices, a lot more people are shopping online, and companies want to develop tools for them. If we were focusing on just homebuilders and the real estate market, we’d probably be out of business by now.”

Swenk adds, “We’ve also come up with many interactive campaigns that are cost-effective and show a higher return on investment, where most agencies are focusing on traditional marketing tactics.”

Still another key step, he says, has been to take advantage of the weak dollar to boost international business. According to Swenk, roughly 35 percent of Solar Velocity’s business is building e-commerce sites.

Swenk has had to counter the natural tendency of businesses to curtail marketing efforts in a downturn and simply wait for the economy to rebound.
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That’s a bad mistake", he said. “The companies that do that just keep spiraling down. They put their business in the market’s hands rather than in their own….I tell companies, ‘Even a whisper can be heard if no one else is advertising.’”