For many businesses, this was a year to forget. Many businesses survived the year but not without the scars to prove that they fought hard to stay in business. Even those who did reasonably well saw customers pull back a bit or reorganize their spending priorities “just until this dark cloud blows over”.
Fair enough. Almost all of us had those calls from clients. Well, guess what. The economy has pretty much sorted itself out. It’s not perfect. It’s not completely healed. It will still ache when it rains. But it’s getting better. Economists tell us that we may still see a blip or two on our radar but we can see some hope in the near distance, too.
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Last year, we watched the economy melt down. Some saw it coming for a while but most people started to get worried around August or September and then we fell off the cliff in November. It has been bad for many, many people.
While there is still a lot of effort to be put into climbing out of this hole, we are hopeful that economists are correct in their prediction of a current economic recovery. While I am not an economist, I am an avid reader and I watch the trends and signs closely and everything does indeed seem to be pointing in the right direction.
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In the past couple of weeks I’ve posted articles that talked about the economy and what to do about it. It’s a compelling topic. But there’s another side to the situation and it’s one I want to devote a blog to today: Extreme success. Even in today’s economy, businesses can be successful. Extremely successful. I can easily think of a dozen businesses that have had a record-breaking year this year at a time when the media is announcing one layoff after another, along with doom and gloom of the economy.
I’ve also learned that it’s not related to a single industry or model of business. I’m aware of an autobody chain that has had its best year ever; I know of a couple of consultants and coaches serving different industries who have generated more revenue now than ever before, and even my own businesses have done better than I had forecast when we entered the recession.
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In the past couple of weeks, we’ve been hearing more and more about the potential for imminent economic recovery. It seems that economists and financial wizards are predicting that we’ll be out a recession soon (although “soon” is loosely defined). While that doesn’t mean that our businesses will be operating at the fever pitch we were operating at before recession, it does mean that hope is on the horizon and we can all breathe just a little easier.
It also means something else: It means NOW is the time to start building your business.
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Creating new products or services is fun! I love the idea of taking an idea and helping someone develop it, turn it into something real, and then sell it. And I know my clients like it, too, because I stay busy with this work!
Unfortunately, I’m seeing a dangerous trend in the market that impacts this product or service development. It’s related to the economy, of course: Companies are spending less on product development and many are choosing to wait until the economy improves before they bring new products to market. Click here to read more »
We live in uncertain economic times. Every time we turn on the news we hear of another company that is going under, another company that is laying off thousands of its workforce or another company that has had to respond to a lack of shareholder confidence with kneejerk reactions. People just don’t want to watch the news anymore!
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