[/caption]Just as there is arithmetic to recovering in the investment market, there is a logic and arithmetic involved in business recovery. Specifically, it's often easier to lose ground than it is to win it back.
In the investment market, if you lose 40% of your $10,000 investment, you have $6,000 left. When that remaining investment adds 40%, you have... $8,400. What a bother.
Similarly, a recession can create business losses that are challenging to recoup... and they aren't all strictly in the numbers.
For example, a large business customer may pull its business "temporarily" during a recession. Getting that customer buying again can be an uphill battle. Getting the customer back to or above its previous level of purchasing can be even tougher. During the customer's hiatus, it has probably been courted by your competition, with great deals, low prices and - gulp - perhaps a fresher approach.
Many businesses reduced their marketing and hence shrunk their visibility during the last difficult quarters. Now they need to regain what they've lost in terms of being "top of mind" - ramping up marketing will require serious, insightful and ongoing effort now if it's been shelved or minimal in the last year or two.
Were your engineers busily designing the next great thing during the slowdown? Great - you can come out shining. However, if the malaise meant that R&D was stalled and that even the best minds in your company were dulled by lack of sales and incentive, it's time to refresh your approach and your offerings, because your competition will or has done so already.
Has the sales team been keeping in touch with all its customers and prospects, or has it, as in the infamous sales saga of Glengarry Glen Ross been waiting for the "good leads" and better times? There is no time NOT to be selling.
Today... while the past certainly affects your firm, days gone by matter now primarily as a lesson. Starting today, you have the need and you've absorbed the arithmetic. You know that a concentrated, energetic and smart effort distinguishes the companies that will soon regain their momentum and reach new heights from those that will not. This is true even if your revenues are down, your staff is reduced and you've borrowed money. It will take more work and more applied intelligence to gain ground than it took to lose it, just as it does in the investment market.
How is your company addressing the recovery? Please comment or email us privately with your thoughts.
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