The government seems to be intervening into our lives everywhere these days. One would think that we are all clueless morons that can’t innovate for ourselves. Sure, tax cuts are nice, but you don’t need government help to grow your business during a recession. Even more important, if you can’t grow your business during a recession… you can’t grow your business for long in an up economy. According to the following study, the US is in a recession 39% of the time.
Take a look at the table below, which was put together by Gary Beach, publisher emeritus of CIO magazine. The table, based on the Fortune 500, shows what percentage of top companies were incorporated during a recession (Beach was using Wikipedia’s list of U.S. recessions, which goes back further than the NBER’s list of U.S. recessions).
Based on Fortune 500 percentage that were incorporated
into business during a recession year :
Top 10 companies 70%
Top 25 companies 64%
Top 50 companes 52%
Top 100 companies 43%
Top 500 companies 36%
Percentage of years that the U.S. has been in recession: 39%
It just goes to show you that anything is possible if you have a vision and take inspired action. Many times, recessions are just the kick in the pants that entreprenuers need to move from a cushy, comfortable position in a corporation to innovating and striking out on their own.
Everything is an opportunity, it’s all in your attitude and where you start. You also need to have a powerful relationship to failure. You need to tell the truth about what is working and what isn’t; and you need to learn to throw out what’s not working and create something that will.
First, just start. Stop talking about, thinking about… blah, blah, blah… get your butt in gear. Take your idea and create a vision for your business or your life. Get a coach and begin to create a plan based on what you want to create in 90 days. Many times, this starts with a budget.
Step one: create a budget with all of your current expenses and income. (If you need support, check out: http://www.isaveyousave.org/2009/06/whats-in-your-wallet.html.) Then, create a fantasy budget including all of the things you’d like to have that you currently can’t afford. Include more than just THINGS. Include donations to organizations you love and want to support, allocate money to savings funds that are dedicated to the things you love and dream of; travel? skiing? surfing? scrapbooking? …whatever you dream you can do. Build this budget so that it becomes a reflection of your vision.
Step two: begin action plan.
Step three: meet regularly with your coach (or other accountabililty partner) to measure yourself against your plan. This is where transformation occurs. You cannot effectively exceed goals and create growth without someone from the outside, looking in, helping you see where you are getting stopped. You must have accountability for the metrics you’ve created in your plan. Where you fail is where you need training.
Come back tomorrow for steps 4-6!
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