Listen to Paul McCord about doing business in this economy.

September 11th, 2009

quotes

As he spells out in this great post, he’s been through recessions before and knows whereof he speaks:

There’s Light at the End of the Tunnel — But It Isn’t the Time to Celebrate

A sample:

Most of us won’t see an uptick in business for some time to come. Others may already be seeing signs of increased business. Either way, now is not the time to relax.

Those of us whose markets aren’t in the process of turning — that’s most of us — must continue to aggressively work to generate business. Our survival depends on it. We are still in survival mode. If we let up, we risk more than just losing ground, we risk putting ourselves in a position where we cannot recover.

Those lucky few of us whose markets already appear to be in recovery cannot afford to relax either. Now is the time to continue to push. Your competitors are feeling the same urge to take a bit of a break after a hard run. They also feel that they deserve — and need — some down time. Let them have it while you aggressively go after the little bit of new business that is coming into your market. Take this time to expand your sales business while your competitors are sitting back congratulating themselves for having survived.

Read the whole thing. His views and mine on the economy and what to do about it seem to align exactly.

We’re not out the woods yet. Keep pushing.

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Category: Economics

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3 Comments so far

dblwyo September 12th, 2009 12:34 am

By this time you likely know my opinion but let me reinforce it. First, we’re a long way from being out of the woods. Despite all the headlines. But more importantly the amount of hard slogging to get to the other side is still being grossly under-estimated. The REAL problem is that there’s swamps and deserts on the other side. You’re going to need to be in tough-minded survival mode focused on crisp operations, real value creation and disciplined management for the “Doldrums Decade”. Here’s the real catch – my guestimatation is that less than 4% of the companies out there are so prepared and 50%+ are in the red or yellow zones. That’s semi-anecdotal but NOT made up.

Tim Walker September 12th, 2009 8:30 am

Dave — I think you’re right. And whether the number of genuinely prepared companies is 4% or 14% or 34% . . . it’s not nearly enough.

The problems we’re facing *are* surmountable — that’s one of the points from Paul’s post that I particularly liked — but my sense is we’re going to have to seriously recalibrate our expectations (of makeable growth rates, of how hard/smart we have to work, etc.) over the coming years.

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