After talking to contractor’s all over the the country this year, I found one word that they all seamed to use and for the ones that used it, I noticed they all were in trouble because of the economy.
The word is assume ! See they all assumed that business would come back around because it always had before. Now I do agree that even myself I have never in 25 years see it this tight.
But hello, how long do you sit and wait before you do something about it?
Yes, I heard all kinds of stories that it will be over and back to normal within 3 months. Did not happen, did it?
Well it’s a election year and it always slows down, but it will take off right after the hammer falls, did not happen did it?
So, I did listen to all of you and I wrote down all the excuses, but that is about all I did. Listen!
Fortunately I have the mind that says garbage in and garbage out. So I have the ability and was raised to always be a positive person and learned to be proactive and be the one that makes things happen.
So yes, 2008 will go down in history as the year of major change. I mean one of our most trusted friends was always your banker and hell ,do you trust him now? How about your investment counselor? He won’t even call you back now!
Change is not a dirty word, if you did not make changes in 2008 then you must be close to dead.
Did you look at your expenses per line item and make changes? Did you cut your work force? Did you sell off trucks or equipment? I’ll bet you even slashed your marketing budget?
So tell me who did you blame for the doom and gloom?
See I did not fall into that doom and gloom trap. Yes I watched CNBC every night and I read the WSJ every day. But for different reasons then maybe you did.
I was looking to build a better mouse trap so we did not need to to all the above. We did not lay off one person. Yes we made those line item changes big time. Yes we did tweak our marketing message to keep sales up.
We had to give 90 installers directions to there job everyday to save us fuel. We beat up our suppliers for better discounts and on time deliveries.
I had to understand the mortgage crisis because our company depended on it. We had to get into the heads of our clients so that we could understand how to position our company for growth in 2009 and what products or services to bring to our market.
I knew I could not assume anything but only changes. Changes that would keep us in the game and keep us as the leader in our industry. Yes we tweaked it everyday and then made changes again and again.
But now we have a lean company that will do fine in 2009 as other companies are falling to the way side. Unfortunately they assumed the worst and it came true for them. They did not understand that changes had to be made to make it.
We look forward to a great 2009 and I hope you all out there understand the changes you must do to survive in this type of economic business climate.
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