Bollocks to the recession is what I say.
Like Dame Stephanie Shirley, the entrepreneur and philanthropist, I’ve dusted down my fur coat, am working harder than ever, but remain upbeat and optimistic.
Some sectors are really struggling. Sales have dropped, costs are under scrutiny and people are losing their jobs. It’s really tough and the media doesn’t inspire any level of confidence.
The reported response of the business community is polarised between denial and despair. Those in denial have failed to recognise that we all need to work harder to stay in the same place. Those that despair have yet to see the opportunity that arises from the disruption of a recession.
Whatever your standpoint its time to get back to basics: stick tight to your clients and help them through the challenges that they face. And then find some new ones. Get out of your office and spend time meeting people. Social networks are good way of making introductions, but are no substitute for meeting people face-to-face.
Porter Novelli’s digital head Mat Morrision said in his recent profile in PR Week that there should be almost no distinction between your personal life and professional life. He’s spot on. I ring fence weekends for family time but otherwise my personal time ends on a Monday morning and doesn’t start again until Friday night. But that’s no different to a lot of my colleagues in the PR and marketing industries.
An optimistic outlook is essential. My glass is always half full. It is a time of opportunity if you look in the right places – and no more so than in the PR industry.
I keep banging on that PR consultancies have the skills and the tools to lead clients into the new area of marketing called social media. Those that do are reaping the benefit.
Beyond that the role of PR as a cost effective marketing tactic makes it a strong proposition for consultancies that can demonstrate value.
Here are three recession busting anecdotes from people I’ve spent time with during the last week.
I caught up with Branded, Loewy’s team of brand communication and marketing strategists for breakfast this morning. It’s telling its clients to scrutinise their marketing spend and focus on the most cost effective channels to reach their audience. That’s good news for PR.
Rebecca Caroe came up with three counter recessionary business ideas for the creative industries in 30 minutes when we met last week. New business models and opportunities are emerging just as fast as old ones are withering.
Finally, I met one of my long term business mentor for lunch last week. His view was that irrespective of the financial packages that have been put in place by world governments and whatever emerges from the G20, it will be the US that leads the world out of the recession. The reason? The fundamental optimism that is built into the American psyche.
I’ll have a bit of that please.
thanks, Wadds for the mention. I would like to add some new stuff that I’ll be working on this week. You may have seen the We20 organisation. they have set themselves up for this purpose
This year, the leaders of the G20 countries are making a plan to fix the economic crisis.
we20 helps you meet, in groups of up to 20 people, to make your own plan. This year, anything can change.
And on Friday I’m going to the Cass Business School in the City to a Cre@te we20 – i.e. a group of people from the creative industries who want to use the we20 format to help find recession -busting ideas and methodologies. I’ll be suggesting the things that are in this column, for sure.
link to Cass event https://bunhill.city.ac.uk/media/events.nsf/(httpMainEvents)/CC969075B7A67F2E8025757C0056A70F?OpenDocument
[...] buzzing around for a while – I met up with Steven Waddington recently and he's just put a great blog post about 'thinking positive' in the recession . Actually I really like the title "Bollocks to Denial and [...]
You’re right about the media. Feeding on the British love of disaster, it’s talking the economy down and down.
It’s helped along by the term “credit crunch”. The CC is essentially a systemic problem in the banking industry rather than the cause of the recession. But for journalists it’s a scary, paper-selling term.
The result? Consumers and businesses decide they are helpless in the face of the all-consuming monster. The very word “crunch” fosters a defeatist attitude – understandable and forgivable if you’ve just lost your minimum wage job and you can’t find another one. Unforgivable and potentially disastrous if you’re running a business.
The bad news is also helped along by several big retailers going under. But why is that happening? Not because civilisation is collapsing, but because it’s changing. The high-profile victims were undermined by out-of-town developments, supermarkets and online shopping. They were going to be vulnerable in any downturn. You could argue that the property bubble prolonged Woolies’ natural life by a decade.
So yes, there are problems with the economy. Yes, we need to diversify production. But in terms of the business fundamentals, there’s no reason why we should have the wipe-out everyone seems to expect. We just need to rebalance, and, as you say, spot the opportunities that times of upset bring.
I heard pretty much this analysis from Dennis Turner, the Chief Economist at HSBC, when I met him at Business Yorkshire a while back. His message was simple: “we can have a depression if we really, really want one. If things go horribly wrong, it will be because we’ve collectively decided that’s what’s going to happen.”
It’s the job of PRs, marketers and hacks to try to push the good news as hard as possible. It’s out there. We just need to persuade people they want to hear it. The folks you mention in the second half of your post are, in themselves, reasons to be cheerful.
I agree actually. All this doom and gloom is beginning to bore me now. I’ve been paying too much attention to (and believing!) the financial armageddon news stories for far too long. The simple fact of the matter is no one knows what’s going to happen.
That said, I don’t doubt that we are not in a good position at the moment. Fact of the matter is, every country around the world (just about) is in the same boat so it’s all relative. We’re all (supposedly) suffering but, anyway, a period of adjustment (e.g. a deflation of inflated house prices) is a good thing.
We got fat and now we have to go on a diet. Painful but good for us in the long run.
Sorry I’m going to get all northern and working class on you now but if my parents can survive without no income during the miners’ strike of 84/85 I can sure as hell do without a few material things.
[...] a display of terrible etiquette I’ve just written a comment on this post by Stephen Waddington that’s almost as long as the original post [...]
While I agree with the excellent advice here for businesses and for PR people in particular, I’m sorry but I can’t help thinking that saying ‘bollocks to the recession’ and debating whether this is a recession/’credit crunch’ – or whatever, overlooks and is too dismissive of the true cost of what’s happening in human terms now to people who can’t afford to say ‘bollocks to it.’
These people are already working their arses off to keep their heads above water and now they aren’t just losing their jobs but their homes too. It’s all very well for nice, middle-class professionals (and I will grudgingly accept I am one now!) to wonder aloud about the downturn or how they are ‘bored’ by media coverage or the ‘doom and gloom’
But if you want to know the true cost of the recession, don’t ask a lovely PR person in their lovely house, ask their cleaner, nanny, local builder or pub.
Despite all of that I am fundamentally an optimist, like your adviser.
There was an interesting piece here yesterday:
Two entrepreneurs. Two businesses. One recession. One business is booming. One has gone bust. Why? http://is.gd/nPQj
I have close experience of someone losing their livelihood and their home. Part of me bristles when I read comments like yours and some of your commenters. But still part of me acknowledges that even when we are at our lowest, we can find hope.
@Linda
That’s a fair point, and bristle away. I suspect you’re not including me in your list of bristle-inducers, but just in case, I’ll repeat what I said:
“The very word “crunch” fosters a defeatist attitude – understandable and forgivable if you’ve just lost your minimum wage job and you can’t find another one. Unforgivable and potentially disastrous if you’re running a business.”
Problem is that if we keep talking ourselves down even more people are going to lose their jobs than would otherwise, and the unemployed list is going to stay high for longer than it needs to. We need to help the people who are hurting, but the best long-term way of alleviating their pain is by being as bullish as realistically possible.
As a freelance consultant I’m in and out of many different businesses across a wide range of sectors. There is a huge difference in how companies are fairing. IME many are clinging on by their fingernails but just as many are flourishing. I do think it depends on your sector but also how flexible you or your business is able to be. I agree that PR folk are in a good position because of their (usually) innate ability to adapt. Most of the PR people I know are inherently like chameleons (journalists may have a less flattering name for it than that…) and consequently I think this industry will be OK. But there is no doubt that whether or not the media are making it worse, it is desperate for many people out there.
I’m with you all the way Wadds, and cheers for the link. I’ve been writing a post along similar lines for the past week or so as I think the midpoint of any recession (let’s be glass half full) brings with it an inevitable shift in sentiment.
And sentiment is a huge factor in this and does have the power to drive recovery in areas of the economy most immediately affected by consumer and investor confidence.
The problem is ’sentiment’ has been down and whatever the inevitable financial reality of the credit crunch the media has played a major part in that. Ironically, if this is the midpoint the media’s next mission will be to second guess, and thereby help drive, recovery. As with any media story the malleability of sentiment is crucial (see: ‘From Racist to Saint, the Jade Goody story’) – build it up, knock it down, build it up again… after all, why see only one story where you can create two or three simply by tacking between positive and negative sentiment on a seasonal basis.
Hopefully more people will say ‘bollocks to the recession’. Great post.