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The Great Recession?

Guest post by: Gregory Kopchuk

Article Overview: Why now is the time to beef up your company

Free Download - Are Canadian Small Businesses Swimming or Treading Water? By Gregory Kopchuk

The Great Recession?

A couple of economists from the Fraser Institute are urging us to keep things in proportion; and noting that the recent recession was bad, but nowhere near the worst.

Actually, recessions aren't always the worst thing that can happen to your small or medium sized business. Don't get me wrong: I am NOT saying they are 100% good news, that people aren't hurt by layoffs and high interest rates.

I know they are. Laying someone off who is doing good work is the hardest thing in the world, believe me.

Here is what I am saying: recessions make us think. How smart are we? Could we do better? Is everything we do 100% customer focused? Do we hire only the best, and pay accordingly?

This is what I tell my small business clients (10 employees or fewer): now is the time to really excel. Recessions are tough for large companies because they are full of nice people who don't do a whole lot for the customer, but have nice-sounding job titles, so they stick around, whether there's money around or not.

If you've worked for a large company, you know what I'm talking about. There are always a group of people somewhere, usually on one of the top floors, who are nice enough, & work hard, but their jobs have nothing to do with customers. These kinds of companies suffer during a recession.

But medium size businesses can afford to go after their clients hard. There are no highfalutin committees or boards or panels at your company; you're not paying people to confer with each other. NOW is the time to hustle even harder.

This is what I tell my medium sized (100 employees or fewer) business clients: you have many of the advantages of the small business-focus, dexterity, speed. And you also enjoy the advantage of bigger resources, so you can go after new customers that a smaller business cannot. It's the best of both worlds, really.

And for the big businesses-100 employees or more? It's simple, really. They are lucky in that they have the resources to ride out tough times that smaller companies do not. You can absorb losses that would wipe out some of your competition. That's the good news. The bad news: you won't be able to absorb the losses forever. So as I mentioned above, now is the time to review everything you do, to see if it's customer focused. If it's not, chances are very good you can do without it.

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About the Author: Gregory Kopchuk
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