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Small Business: Surviving the Recession

dougp — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:43:10 GMT

Whether you call it Natural Selection or Survival of the Fittest, you can expect to see many of the weak and less agile businesses become prey to the U.S. economy over the next 12 to 18 months. If you are one of the small businesses, don’t be a victim, in fact you can come out of this stronger, leaner and much more competitive. I believe that this recession will create a resurgence in consumer spending at the mom & pop shops rather than the corporate giants.

We have already seen the affects of the down turn in the economy as it has claimed numerous large corporations, like Circuit City, Linen’s and Things, AIG, GM, … the list goes on and on. Consumer spending is down as a whole but that doesn’t mean that your business has to suffer. The businesses that survive this recession will emerge stronger for several reasons. First, many business owners have already made the first move by restructuring their companies, downsizing their workforce, re-negotiating their contracts, eliminating or modifying costly policies & procedures. All of this makes your business more agile and improves its chance of survival. But with consumer spending down how can you protect your revenues? As some businesses will fail this leaves the remaining businesses with competition. The pie may be smaller but that doesn’t mean you have to go hungry, you just need to take a bigger piece.

Do you have a chance against these Goliaths of business? YES. Over the past decade we have seen big business become bigger and bigger (and a little scary), so big that they could not be effectively monitored or regulated. This is why the list of business failures is led by the multi-billion dollar ones like those listed above. This has chipped away at consumer confidence in corporate America, which I believe will make consumers more likely to spend their money locally, with a small business like yours.

So now what? Well don’t be afraid of the recession or those business giants, focus on the internal operations of your business, how and where you spend your money. Work smarter, more effectively and reach out to these local consumers. Rethink how you market your business, if you haven't already done so consider internet marketing. Now may be the time to redesign your website. The strength of the small business is its ability to adapt, so take advantage of this and make sure your business is running as efficiently as possible.

The Value of Yesterday

dougp — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:39:28 GMT

A recent blog posting referenced Meredith Willson’s The Music Man regarding the value of yesterday; “If you pile up enough tomorrows, you'll find that you've collected nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays.” I would like to share my thoughts on the value of yesterday.

We can and should learn from yesterday but not live by it. The decisions we make every day should be based on the most current information we have. That doesn’t mean we have to second guess every prior decision made, but we should be challenging our processes on a regular basis. In order to make the best decision we need to remove all of the constraints affecting our decision. One of these barriers is the holding onto our past. We should come to work each day asking the question, “What is the best way to handle this task/project/process today?” How we did something yesterday, last week or even last year may have been the best approach at the time, but it doesn’t mean it is the best approach today. Keeping our past experiences in mind and using this information to make better decisions today should be our goal. Next time you are asked to change a process and you find yourself thinking or saying, “…we can’t do that…” or “…we have always done it this way…” STOP and THINK, are you holding onto yesterday or do you really believe the old process is better. Change is inevitable and can be stressful but change can be very rewarding. Without change there will be no improvement.

My Brain is Full

dougp — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:58:24 GMT

Don't let this happen to you. Our brain should be exercised daily, don't be afraid to use it. It's like that container of Play-Dough, you use it once, close it up, put it in the back of your closet and months later when you want to use it, you find that it is all dried up. Periodically we need to step out of the daily routine of work and home and use our gray matter in a new way. I set a goal to learn something new every day. I've been doing this for years and I'm still not "full". Push yourself to learn something new each day, it can be as simple as learning how to use a new formula in Excel, how to write a blog (today's lesson) or how to repair your big screen TV (I counted that one as an entire week's worth of learning). It doesn't have to be a life altering event, I promise it won't hurt. When you add it up, 365 days a year over the course of your life, think of how many things you can learn. Try expanding your scope of understanding at work, ie. do you know what happens to that document you hand off to co-worker? Understanding the process a step or two before or after it leaves your desk may help the process run smoother.

Exercising your brain can be fun too. Test yourself with these.

Complete this sequence: T W T F __ __
This sequence of four words, "triangle, glove, clock, bicycle," corresponds to this sequence of numbers "3, 5, 12, 2." ? True or False
Which one of the letters does not belong in the following series: D - F - H - J - K - N - P - R

Answers can be found at Blog: "Full Brain Answers"

My Brain is Full - Answers

dougp — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:15:52 GMT