stay focused during these trying times. In a previous post of
my own, I reminded you - you can't do anything about the
economy but you can survive it. It appears there's someone
else who agrees with me.
May have mentioned Craig Garber a time or two because he's one
of the people I read every email, he knows his sh...stuff:)
Anywho, I wanted to get this out to you before life interrupts.
Take what you can use...leave the rest.
The Pink Elephant in the room no one wants to talk about.
Do you know what the "pink elephant in the room" means?
It's a metaphor for "something uncomfortable" no one wants to
talk about.
So for example, lots of personal issues may fall under this
category: marital infidelity, a recent stint in rehab, your
kid's arrest, someone's critical illness or a death in the
family.
These are all issues that we carry on our back, and in fact,
they're heavy enough that others around you wind up carrying
them as well, but... they aren't necessarily easily discussed.
That's why they're called "the pink elephant in the room."
These brutal truths are with you, but they linger unaddressed or
undiscussed. Usually, the pain of dealing with them is greater
than the pain of ignoring them. And sometimes, they infer value
judgements or personal embarrassment. (Who wants to discuss
their infidelity, especially if they've been caught, for
goodness sakes?)
To a great extent, the current recession we've been
experiencing is a pink elephant.
I can't tell you how many e-mails I've received over the last
45 days, from a variety of marketers, which sort of gloss over
the recession as if it's a fleeting cold sore that's going to
go away -- all you need to do is put a little ointment on it or
something and wait 7 days.
Or else they say things like this, "Hey, what are you talking
about? I just had my best month yet -- there must be something
wrong with all you whiners. All you need to do is surround
yourself with people like me and buy my shit and you'll be fine
and dandy."
Let me tell you something.
I don't know ANYONE who hasn't felt the effects of the
recession, myself included. My income is down from last year,
thank God only slightly, but what I'm having to do to keep it
up, is pretty darn hard.
I had to start another business from scratch and kill myself for
90 days, to make things happen. Now you may say, "Well, at
least you can do this." But who wants to do extra, just to
keep the status quo?
Not me. You want to do extra to GET extra. Right?
You know, I was even talking to a divorce lawyer the other day,
and he told me there isn't an attorney in his town who's not
feeling it.
He said people are initiating a divorce, and then they're
simply not able to make any payments to their attorneys. After
all, in a typical divorce, you wind up splitting apart some kind
of an asset base to initiate the divorce proceedings and to then
go on with your separate lives.
But today, there's no more asset base to pull apart. Retirement
savings, 401(k)'s, and other savings accounts have been halved
in just the last few months alone. And home equity -- shit,
that's a joke. Home equity's been stripped to the bone, and
most people are upside down in their homes now, especially if
they moved in sometime during the last 5 years.
He also told me most people are just staying together and sort
of "grinning and bearing it" until things get better
financially.
Sure enough, Anne comes home that same night and tells me about
some friends of hers who are splitting up but they can't afford
to get divorced so they're staying together in their house for
now.
Listen, it's really crazy out there.
So here's the REAL deal about the recession, in case you were
starting to feel like you're the only one feeling it. Rest
assured, you're not -- and... there's nothing wrong with you.
Here's what happens during times like this, and some solutions about how to overcome these issues:
One, people stop paying their bills on time. So even if your
customers don't want to stop paying you, many of them aren't
getting paid on time, or even at all, and this ultimately
trickles down (or up) to you. If they aren't getting paid, you
won't get paid either.
Two, your receivables may build up, depending on what kind of a
business you're in. So do whatever you can to initiate or
rapidly collect them, including offering discounts. Remember, a
dollar today is worth far more than the promise of a dollar
tomorrow -- especially if that promise gets broken.
Three, there are lots of good buys out there. So if you do have
some cash and you've been needing things like PPE (Plant,
property, equipment -- I harken back to my days as a CPA.),
you're going to find loads of bargains around.
Four, cut any unnecessary costs. If you've got an assistant,
then make sure they're busy all the time, or else clip their
hours to part-time or use someone virtual. Bottom line is,
now's not the time to be dicking around "hoping" things get
better.
"Hope" is not a good business strategy, and it's not a good
recession-fighting strategy either.
Five, since most of your competitors have been either wiped out
or decimated, ramp up your marketing. This is the one area you
want to sink more money into. However, the good news is, just
as with the PPE deals, media is hurting as well. You've got
lots of leverage now, especially if you're using space
advertising. Newspapers and magazines are at an all-time low,
profit-wise, and they want your business.
In fact, in many cases they want your money much more than you
want their ad space. Direct-mail is also down now, so your list
broker is hungry, and so is your printer. This is THE time to
be picking up new customers, by niching your list further, and
by cutting a deeper swath into your marketplace.
Establishing yourself as a leader is easy now, when most others
are cowering in the basement. It's important however, you
target your marketplace specifically, since they too, are
trimming the fat.
There is money out there, you just have to work smarter (not
necessarily harder) to get it.
Six, appreciate that most people who are running around telling
you "everything's beautiful" are either lying, or their head
is up their ass. Everything's NOT beautiful, but that's
simply the market risk we all take running our own business.
You either deal with it, and make things happen to overcome the
challenges you're facing, or... you sit on the pink elephant
and ride off into the imaginary sunset, on his back.
Denial is an ugly thing, and it's also insulting.
The choice is yours.
Now go sell something, Craig Garber
That's it for today and I leave you with this -
When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
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