Hang on to your hats til 1 April
October 2, 2008 at 10:31 am
Was at a Dublin Chamber business breakfast this morning. The mood was sombre and I noticed there were lots of businesses in attendance who haven’t shown their faces at those kind of events for a long time. You know the businesses who were so busy over the last 10 years that they didn’t need to market? Well they’re getting out of bed early again.
I was interested to talk to some risk, tax, banking, and finance people about their thoughts on when this current position of absolute stale-mate is going to last. I know we are facing into a downturn that is not going to reverse itself quickly, but what I wanted to get a feel for was the opinion on how long this ‘do nothing because we’re scared to do anything’ stalemate is going to last for.
Q1 into Q2 was the general consensus.
So round about Mar/April of next year, businesses will be licking the wounds that have been and are currently being inflicted through the drying up of finance. Hopefully liquidity will be flowing again and businesses can go back to planning and spending and driving their businesses forward. Because even in a recession, businesses still need to buy services.
So what to do between now and then?
I’m going to work hard at marketing - something I’ve overlooked in recent months because I’ve been guilty of ‘busy sickness’ and have been too hard at it to look at my own site and business offerings.
- Working on my own site’s search engine ranking.
- Improving the very popular email marketing - yes, I will get the next one out on time!
- Working my lists.
- Getting on the phone.
It’s a challenge and requires a change of mindset. No longer can we put off new client meetings for 2-3 weeks because we’re fully booked. If someone wants to meet me and talk about a new project, I will reschedule my diary to accommodate them.
I’ve long held the view that some of the younger ones in our industry who have never known what it is to work in a non-flying economy will get a jolt when it finally happens. Last year I was shocked when someone wanted to charge me for his time - in a meeting where I was briefing him on a project that would bring him €20,000!! Those days are over. I wish everyone the best of luck as we adapt and adjust to these changed market conditions. And I mean that most sincerely. I hope to be celebrating successes with you when the good times roll around again.
Comments (4 responses)
Two of the team here were at a seminar yesterday on government tendering and say that there was a palpable feeling of panic in the room from the companies attending with impatient questions of “Just tell us how to get some of this money…quickly.”
And everybody knows that you haven’t really got a hope in hell of winning government business unless you’ve got a track record of winning government business!
I’m also detecting a sense of almost relief from certain parties who are relishing the thought of going back to living simply. As one wealthy person said to me, “I don’t have to go to the spa anymore. And it’s OK if I get another season out of this handbag.”
I started a B2B service business back in ‘89 just in time for the last recession and we learnt very quickly about cutting jobs, belt tightening and working smarter on getting the customer but more importantly learning how to listen to them in terms of what they needed and what we could do for them. It was tough but we survived.
Gone are the days of ‘heh, lets build it and the customer will come’. We are now back in a time where strategic planning, marketing, networking, cold calling, selling, professionalism, willingness to do business but most importantly exceptional customer care will be requirement of survival.
So those of you who are not prepared to play by the rules - you might as well hang up ‘Closed for business - due to lack of initiative’
And for those of us who are, it’s roll the sleeves up time, get the phone and start dialling for dollars!
Please excuse that most terrible of Americanisms there, it’s a phrase an old boss ingrained into me whenever I got on the phone.
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