I was meeting today with the Sr. VP of Marketing/Communications for a $200M finance firm on the east coast. Like so many others, he just got the order a couple of weeks ago: his body count must go down. He was forced to drop his director of communications and some others. Now the executive has lots of demands, but not enough “go to” people to make it all happen. He’s swamped as it is and maybe even sleepless: the circles under his eyes were so deep I couldn’t even see the color of his eyes or the whites surrounding them.

Though losing a key member of his team was depressing for him and tragic for the guys who lost their jobs, there are some things firms like mine do to lessen the fallout for the executive. In a virtual world, with the help of transparent, user friendly technology, I showed the exec why he doesn’t have to sacrifice his marketing agenda just because his budget is contracting – and he can start getting 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night. Here are my five favorite tips for marketing execs who want to cut budgets and save money:

1) Use a contractor – but be careful about subcontracting services to large  ad agencies: they tend to load up too many bodies on very simple jobs, and their profit margins are often grossly excessive.

2) Use a contractor who is totally transparent in all billing practices – and one who is willing to quote flat costs for specific product development services (brochures, e-newsletters, web design, content development, PR, etc.) upfront while quoting a flat, non-changeable fee.

3) If hourly rate services are required, demand a front-end estimate as to the number of hours for specific activity; if its impossible to estimate, look for a rate of $100/hour, give or take 10 dollars or so.

4) Look for an occasional in-person relationship with the leader of that contractor organization – otherwise, avoid lots of on-site meetings when a phone or video conference will do. A solid organization should be able to give you terrific results with no in-person meetings. (Many marketing organizations love on-site meetings because they can send several people and rack up the hourly bills.)

5) Finally: avoid organizations owned by large conglomerates – their margins are ridiculous (funded by you). Look for a boutique firm that will give you tons of attention at reasonable prices – but beware of boutique names that are actually subsidiaries of large multi-national agencies – they look small, but their cost structures are no different than their parent companies.