You don’t need to meekly accept the doom and gloom stories from the business world.
All is NOT doom and gloom. Some sectors are prospering, many others are doing really well.
Outplacement is booming, property developers and hotels for the super-wealthy in the Caribbean are prospering, bus and train companies are making good profits, cinemas traditionally do well during recessions, so do sewing machine shops; Amazon the online book seller is anticipating it’s best Christmas sales period ever.
I am not saying that you have to raise megabucks to build a swanky hotel or a new railway franchise or an online book store. What I am suggesting is that you look at these areas and ask yourself: “what other services or products do the people buying these services also require?”
The point is that any area that is successful is creating an audience, so, is there some way you can feed off that audience?
My motto is “think creatively!”
During the recession of 1991/2 I had two of the best earning years of my entire career. My success was due to three factors:
1. I remained confident and positive about business.
2. My business was in an area that really interested me.
3. My marketing was highly creative.
Another key to prospering in a recession is to look for areas where existing companies are NOT doing things very well. Train companies treat their most profitable customers, commuters, with disdain. The trains that commuters have to travel on are overcrowded and often dirty. Is there an opportunity to provide any group of commuters with a clean and efficient service? Some commuters might pay a hefty premium for such luxury.
Research shows that in the USA during the 1991/2 recession more people became millionaires than at any other time in that country’s history.
Why did that happen?
It was because desperate people who couldn’t get jobs to pay their mortgages went out and started businesses. They looked closely at markets to spot where opportunities existed. They got creative about the way they provided solutions. They created innovative marketing campaigns. And they prospered.
Let me demonstrate what I mean by creative thinking.
In my view outplacement companies are going to collect a lot of hefty fees from large companies on the pretext that they will help redundant people get jobs.
I looked at the market and asked myself: “where are the jobs? How can these outplacement companies possibly succeed in helping people get jobs when the total number of jobs in the country is shrinking?
If you follow the American situation in 1991/2 you notice that it was desperate people, who couldn’t get ordinary jobs, who solved the problem of earning an income by starting their own companies. In the UK alone 4.5 million people have gone this route and started their own businesses.
So I said to myself, “with my experience of starting two successful companies how I could help people start businesses and turn their interests into six figure incomes?” That is how you need to think when times are tight.
Did you notice that I used the phrase turn their “interests into incomes?”
This is a very important element of success when you decide to start a business of your own. If you do something in which you can naturally become absorbed you are far more likely to succeed. It will appear easier and more natural to you.
The other key to success is to not allow the global situation to grind you down. Don’t become despondent. Take note that in many sectors business is booking. See a recession as a time of opportunity, which it is. Think creatively and you will come out of the so-called economic crisis smelling of roses.
To sum up the keys to success are: be confident, be creative in your thinking and your marketing; research to find sectors that offer good opportunities and choose an area that will allow you to work on things in which you are already interested.
