It Was The Best of Times, It Was The worst of Times

Neil Stafford

The quote above from Charles Dickens’ ‘A Tale Of Two Cities’ is so very apt in this year’s emerging new economy…for some it will be the best of times and for others (the ones who are poorly run, are not adapting or choose to curl up and hope things get better) it will certainly be a bumpy and, in some cases, a terminal ride!

The Inept, incompetent and lazy will perish.

If you’ve been reading this update for a while you’ll know my feelings about how the media is guilty of sensationalism and hyperbole reporting about the economy.

Yes, sectors are suffering such as the banking sector, Estate Agents, Mortgage related firms as a DIRECT result of last year’s credit crunch.

However, this year many firms will use the credit crunch as a reason to make the cuts they SHOULD have done a long time ago….the new economy WILL highlight the poorly run firms, incompetent staff and firms who have ridden the good times without investing in processes, systems AND good marketing.

Let me give you an example.

At New Year we went to stay with friends and the husband worked for one of the BIG high profile firms that have closed over the last couple of months. I won’t name them as he has been kept on by the administrators to help with the winding up and sale of the assets of the company.

However I took the opportunity to ask him what caused their downfall, was it the current economy or something else?

His response…..”incompetence caused the downfall“.

During his work now he’s found that the company had a significant amount of over stock. Again I won’t tell you the exact numbers but this company had stock that was 100% over budget.

For example, if they should have had £10m worth of stock in they actually had close to £20m!

Therefore when bills became due they could have paid the expected bills (even in this economy) BUT, and this is the killer, there was no way they could pay the £20m.

Therefore suppliers cut off their credit, no new stock was coming in, they couldn’t order what was selling and the inevitable happened.

(My friend who is excellent at his job has actually got another job with a different employer and starts in a week….listening to the media there are no jobs around are there!)

There was another example of media mis-reporting when a news segment reported that at the Next Sale over Christmas people are that short of money and hard up Next had queues outside the shop at 5am with people wanting to save money in the sale.

Next *ALWAYS* has queues at 5am for its sales…I should know as Karen has been to many over the years! :-)

** The Year Of You **

I termed 2009 the year of you.

This year is all about YOU and how YOU can make this year whatever YOU want.

In the emerging new economy you can choose to be one of the lazy, inept and incompetent who will perish according to Darwins survival theory OR you can choose to be the marketer and entrepreneur who stands head and shoulders above the competition building a relationship with your customers, marketing your products and making offers that let the customer know that it is YOU they should be doing business with.

Yes, it is work and with work comes wealth…

This is the year of YOU.

Are you prepared to roll up your sleeves, jump into the fire and prove you can be a success in 2009.

Come on in and join us for a great 2009.

Neil

If you’ve read this far then you’re ahead of most people who’ll either decide that how dare I speak to them as I have or haven’t even bothered to read this far and are off looking for the next best thing.

This is the year of YOU.

In Life, Aim High, Inspire and Smile

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