Do what you always do, get what you always got! Well not necessarily in the next couple of years: as the recession continues to grip, everybody needs to look at things differently and ACT!
I see via my Coaching and Mentoring more and more people becoming despondent owing primarily to the doom and gloom they read in the newspapers and watching on the News. With my mentoring hat on, my advice is to stop reading newspapers or watching the News everyday and possibly get a snapshot each weekend or just focus on the sports pages! Everybody will be impacted differently and we all need to think for ourselves rather than be dragged down continuously by news about the overall economy. Any period when things are uncertain is an excellent time to focus all of your attention and energies on being creatively responsive to all of the unpredictable events that lie ahead.
I am not suggesting you “should bury your head in the sand”; in fact quite the reverse. It should be a time where you take stock and assess exactly where your business is at the moment and what you should be doing differently. Depending on which trade or industry you are in, or working with, there could be many opportunities in a difficult market place. How are you going to maximise these opportunities assuming you have stepped back to work out what these are in the first place?
Rather than over-worry about what may or may not happen way into the future, focus on what is happening each day and make sure each day’s contributions, achievements and results are the best they can be. Focus on what the priorities are for each 24 hour period and be more positive than you have ever been before. Keep focusing on the progress you are making now rather than when it was easy a few years ago. Work with every resource and opportunity at hand, and your confidence will continually grow.
When times are good companies often become order takers and because referrals pour in they forget how to sell and actually go out looking for business. In this economic climate many people don’t want to be sold at but they do want solutions that eliminate their dangers, capture their opportunities and reinforce their strengths. The more you focus on others and become a source of confidence for them and provide solutions, the sales will naturally follow.
Now is not the time to be insular and inside yourself. Once you have thought through your new strategy go and talk to lots of people and build your network and relationships with all of those people who can influence the opportunities for your business, whether these are friends and family, colleagues, suppliers, customers and prospects.
Although I have not managed to get my own head around the Law of Attraction I do understand the fact that if you are positive and show gratitude for what you have, the magnet turns around and attracts the opportunity for the best thinking, actions, and results to emerge. If you surround yourself with negative people, you are a lot more likely to get a negative result.
- So what is your business strategy for 2013?
- How much are you changing to suit the new environment?
- How have you communicated your new plans of operating to your staff and are they on board for the “roller coaster ride?”
- Are you still carrying passengers who will drag you back through these changing times?
- What else have you not tackled in the past but could make you really suffer over the next 2 years?
- Which clients do you work with are likely to have cash flow problems and what are you going to do about their credit terms?
- What is your marketing strategy for 2013?
- Do you need to update your website to reflect your new approach?
- Do you get a return for all of your marketing expenditure?
- Do you need a coordinated networking discipline and is your sales force doing what you need?
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