The Economy

Things are good but I don't like it. I see a strong local economy surrounded by a larger uncertainty and I'm uneasy. The European nations are floundering, the USA will probably default because either way, Obama is sure to get the blame. In 2008 when the recession first hit, I never thought I'd be writing this three years later, but here we are.

Do we care about the mess that surrounds us in spite of our own Canadian good fortune? Well, - yes and no. I'd prefer if the USA was booming, but we're also not doing bad without it. Our natural resource sector is selling strong to Asia. Manufacturer's are competing, and doing ok. China's wages have doubled reducing their price competiveness. Real estate is strong, but parts of Canada will go soft in 2012. BC has ongoing sales to Asian investors which keeps values high.

So worry or not? From a management perspective I'm paying attention to two things. Maximizing sales, and maximizing production throughput. We're building systems and hiring what we need, in an effort to make sure any work that presents itself will get done and done well. We want loyalty and repeat. In unstable times you rely on your network. At the same time we're maximizing our marketing and sales like never before. Whatever favourable business window we're benefiting from now I want to fully exploit. I have no idea if or when it will close again.

A shrinking economy hurts only the bottom, the worst companies. The strong companies take business away from the weaker players and stay profitable. If BC stays strong, I'll be strong and it won't matter. If the world drags BC down, then I'll be taking business away from my competitors and still be strong. Either way, things will be good for us.

We'd like to become detached from local and maybe even world economies. Microsoft ran like that for years. They were so strong and far ahead of everybody else economic fluctuations had no effect.

Build advantage, build throughput capacity, build sales, and your company will be safe!

See you for breakfast,
Wolfgang

p.s. See you on September 14th. Subject: Absenteeism and Attendance Management.

p.s. We're repeating the B2B Sales Process Engineering seminar in Richmond. Oct. 5th. Same as what we just completed in Surrey for 100 sales and sales managers. It was successful, over subscribed to, we turned people away. This is your chance to re-structure your entire selling system.