We Will Not Take Part In This Recession

There is a world wide recession. We know that and if in any doubt we only need to look as far as the closest newspaper or television news report

My knowledge of world markets and finances is limited and this encourages me to feel a little insecure about the short and long term effects of the recession on my businesses. I have the financial health of three companies resting with my decisions and I do not take that lightly. I agree that we should all be watching carefully and it would be wise to plan for tighter times ahead. BUT what I have a problem with is the deeper recession we all create for ourselves, out of fear. 

Decisions based on fear are seldom good ones yet we tend use fear as a motivating factor again and again. Our reaction to the media frenzy is to batten down the hatches and stop spending. In essence this creates a deeper recession as money remains stagnant and we cut off the life blood of loyal suppliers as we discontinue their services “just in case”. The circle of the freeze on spending goes around and around taking with it many unnecessary fatalities. I learned an important rule early in our business’s lives’. Money needs to keep moving. Things that move create energy and regenerate. Momentum is critical to survival. Anything left to stagnate dies. With everyone in the mind frame of the big freeze we are worsening our situation and we need to revisit our reasoning.

We were all warned 8 months ago that we would be in deep trouble by now. Many businesses are feeling the effects but many aren’t, yet they have also stopped spending. We aren’t feeling the effects anywhere near to the predictions, although we did do some extra planning. We timed our “emergency response” actions on actual events and not on expected events. We worked our forecasts out on facts and prepared a number of different forecasts to account for a number of different factual realities. Yet we are being warned again that we are nowhere close to the end of the recession and if we don’t go into freeze mode immediately we will be in BIG trouble shortly.

Travelling through Auckland on Friday I passed a billboard outside of a well known car dealer prominently displaying the words “We will not take part in this recession”. I think this dealer deserves a medal. Not only are they releasing their own employees and customers from “freeze” mode but they are passing on this positivity to the many commuters that travel past their dealership daily. We cannot control our environment but we can control our thinking. Be careful. Plan meticulously but try to respond to actual events and not media hype and don’t freeze out your suppliers. Maybe if you spread this message your customers will do the same.