Posts Tagged ‘no growth’

Over the weekend I met up with another small business owner and we got chatting over a few beers.   He was slightly depressed about the state of his business, and that fact in the last two years he had seen no growth.  Nothing.  Zilch.  Zip.   His turnover and profits for 2011 and 2010 were almost identical to 2009.

This made him nervous, because everybody was talking about growth.   New customers, new was of selling, new products, new price structures – grow, grow, grow was the key messages he was seeing.  To stay static was to stagnate and die.

But there is another view.

If your business is static – I congratulate you.  If your 2011 figures were the same or even close to your 2009 figures – well done.  If you are doing the same work as two or three years ago – have a beer to celebrate.

Right now, the world is in a pickle.   Regardless of whether you are in the USA, Europe or anywhere else in the world, the economic picture is not so good.  Greece is about to go bang, Spain will follow, which will hurt (maybe kill) the Euro, which in turn will hurt the US dollar, which will infect China and Japan.

The future looks bleak, but the past has been just as bad.   The last four years have been just painful for most companies, people and countries.  Cutbacks, no credit, recession – its been bad.

So if you are managing to stay static (both in your personal finances and in your business)– good for you.

After all, you don’t need to be taking steps forward when everybody else is taking a step backwards.