Please wake up and Smell the Recession

I spent three hours working hard with someone this morning who walked out of the meeting with nothing. Therefore I walked out with nothing. What is the point of trying so hard to help someone inject some strategic thinking into their business if they refuse to take any of the suggestions on board?

Pardon my tone of dejection but it has been a while since I met such an ostrich. No offence to any real ostriches out there reading this here blog ;o)

It is a long time since I've seen such an enthusiastic approach to head-burying.

Take a business, over 20 years in operation. When they started up they were pretty much the only operators in their field - well done, blue ocean etc., marvellously opportunistic.

5 years on, the Celtic Tiger arrived and the business grew organically by word of mouth, and has continued to do so since then. (Cue thoughts of "is that it? Could they not have grown some more?" and yes I would agree but I'll get back to today...)

PROBLEM
They have never had to go out and look for business in their life - not once. It has all sort of just landed on their doorstep - OMG what luck.

And what happens now?
They are now not alone in their market. Lots of other - business hungry - people have entered their area of expertise over the last 20 years and what's more, they're good at it.

What ever about the alarming fact that this morning's "business" person did not even know who their closest competitor was (how have they survived!!) - my main worry was providing them with the basic tools they need to survive from here on in. They need to drastically change their strategy and start listening to their customers. At the moment they are manufacturing product and simply waiting for the clients to come along and buy it, without finding out if they want the stuff in the first place!

A bit of research, a bit of listening, a bit of reflexion wouldn't go amiss. This morning was just soul-destroying: at every opportunity the business person turned around and told me all about how they have operated in business up to this point. They are worried and stressed all the time, haven't paid themselves a wage in over 12 months and called me up asking for help. If they had the good sense to ask for help, why wouldn't they listen? I was so confused...

I think I have it now though. I just don't think their heart is in it. Looking for work now is too much effort for them - they have only survived because running a business until last year was easy for them. Rethinking strategies, networking, doing a simple competitor analysis, a SWOT on their own business, looking at trends in their marketplace - all too much like hard work, not at all appealing.

My goodness. It really is a wonder they got this far!

Rant over, apologies one and all...

National Pride

Went to see this recently. Shivers, spine, etc.

Evokes a memory or two that is worth awakening, IMHO.

For the first time it occurred to us as a nation that we could actually be sexy... That Irish dancing wasn't twee... That we had such a lot to be proud of. That we had so much potential.

And then we unleashed it! I'd love it if we could get back to that. The pride in our own ability, taken with a pinch of humility that didn't make us too big for our boots.

I hope we can get back to that. To being a great little nation.

Have a look - I hope you enjoy it!



***Edit***
The Irish Times has a lovely montage of the show backstage at the Gaiety Theatre. You can view it here.

New Year and a New Beat

There's a scurry of activity on the entrepreneurial front so far this year, and us only a week in. I'm delighted to see it. Lots of people working away on business plans; I was getting emails over the Christmas asking me for cashflow projection templates and information on available grant aid from various sources. Lots of people gearing up for the new year, planning their attacks on the recession! I love it.

As predicted, not many of the businesses are ground-breaking and mad. This is not the time for risk taking. OK, some people are thinking about starting luxury businesses which I have to question, and gently ask a few tough questions about proving a demand for the service/product before they invest 90% of their redundancy package in a frills-filled start-up. I'm not a damp squib, I'm a realist. I wouldn't be able to sleep if I say idly by and didn't make a few realistic suggestions here and there.

However the majority of people dropping by and asking questions are planning to start normal businesses, assured that the recession will create a bubble of opportunity for high quality value for money service offerings. And I couldn't agree more. I've said it before - this period of time will bring out a desire for quality, stuff that will last and give the best value for money. So it turns out that Frugal Ireland has been hiding behind Tiger Affluence all along - who knew?! The crappy half-arsed low-quality rip-off merchants will fall away, out of the marketplace and the quality businesses will remain. Hurrah.

Over the entire course of the Christmas period I only met one retailer who was rude, and didn't have the phrase "customer service" in his dictionary. He was a dic in fact. But his business partner made up for it by being utterly lovely and helpful. So that's just one person who took a sale for granted. The rest of the country has been realising that the customer is back to being king - and values their revenue enormously. Hurrah for the consumer.

So if you are thinking about starting a business and wondering what to get just right - remember the simple things. Service at a decent price, with a smile. That's it.

Simplicity I tell you. All the best ideas are so simple and straightforward. The trick is not to overcomplicate things. Good luck!

It's too sunny to blog

Is that the wrong thing to say? Sod it. It's been too long since we've seen sunshine in Ireland. No more comments about "ooooh, what if it's the same as last year, a few nice days in April/May and then nothing but shite for the entire Summer," using the term summer as loosely as humanly possible...

At least business was booming last year. Not. People were unable to go outside and enjoy BBQ weather so they could have stayed indoors and shopped, gone to the cinema [summer of sequels!], etc. but no they couldn't, because the cost of living was shooting up all over the place. According to the never-one-handed folk (Economists) the hike in fuels were offset by the drop in spending on fun things like shoes... Not to mention the old ECB hiking things up just for fun, people's mortgages shooting upwards, the effects really driving home during the summer months. Remember that? Personally I think everyone still went out shopping and going to the clickies and having fun. I think they never really believed that a downturn was on the cards. I reckon it was a case of "surely not, not the Celtic Tiger, sure we'll be grand! Aren't we streets ahead of the rest of them..."

Let's hope it doesn't happen again this year. And let's hope we get some sunshine too :) All the never-one-handeds are focusing on the positive, bless their socks. Matt Cooper's been chatting with ESRI this week and they keep talking about the positive medium-to-long-term forecasts. Nobody has the balls to talk about the big elephant in the room. As yes, those short term realities. I for one don't remember anything but cocopops and cartoons from the 80's so I'm in 2 minds about this. Greedily interested in seeing how it pans out, but also worried about what it could mean for the old financial security...