Recovery and Optimism Returns in 2010

2009 saw most Australian businesses bear the biggest brunt of the global financial crisis. This crisis, like all other financial crisis before it, claimed some big scalps. Large businesses went into liquidation and closed their doors gaining extensive media scrutiny in the process. Unfortunately, some small businesses also failed to survive the crisis. Generally that didn’t get the media attention of the large failures but the pain and suffering caused to business owners, their families and their teams was just as real and is just as an important blow to the national economy.

2010 sees us in recovery mode. Optimism is returning and confidence is starting its climb back to its peak position. 2010, like 2009 will present some fantastic opportunities to small business operators. I feel very privileged to say that not one of my clients closed their doors or even contracted their operations during 2009. Some maintained status quo, but the vast majority actually grew.

Opportunities in recovery times, much as opportunities in recessionary times, will come to those who go looking for them. The reason my clients survived and even grew during more recent tough economic times and low business confidence levels was because they were always on the lookout for opportunities. They were brave but not silly. They took risks but not uncalculated ones. Where needed, they cut overheads, trimmed excess, eliminated wastage and ran as lean an operation as was sensible to do.

More importantly though, they were brave enough to push forward and to spend money on developing and growing their business, employing new team members and putting themselves strongly out in the marketplace. In many cases, this afforded them the opportunity not only to maintain their market share but to in fact increase their market share as competitors practiced more of a batten down the hatches mentality, such as cutting back on service delivery standards and making themselves less available to existing and potential clients.

As a result of that thought process, some of my clients’ competitors did close their doors and my clients were then in the box seat to pick up that additional market share.

You might have read our newsletter article on our website titled “It’s All About the Little Things.” It is concepts like that which have helped successful businesses maintain their position during the crisis and it is those same “little things” that will help them to continue to grow into the future. Coaching is very much about staying focussed on those little things whilst we continue to aim for the lofty goals.

Regards, Mark