How is your business coping with the bad economy?

Re: How is your business coping with the bad economy?


My events business went completely in the tubes. My dj and karaoke business still produces a nice income but people and corporations are not spending like they used to, and all the operators panicked and starting price warring to get the gigs. Pussies. If we had all held our ground this wouldn't have happened. I am looking into other opportunities though, and I believe the true entrepeneur will always find something to do to make money. Even a bad year working for yourself is better than a good year working for someone else IMO. You'll never see me in stop and roll traffic with a yellow power tie and a pinched up face on heading into RTP at 7:15 am I promise you that.

I don't run the business but my employer has seen a 300% increase in busines in the last year and is projecting equeal growth this year. We've been hiring slowly all along.

what business fishin?

IT related. Database and network services.

When I started with them almost 3 years ago we had about $3 million in annual sales in 2 locations and 16 employees. Now we're at about $37 million annually, 8 locations (nationally) and 120 employees.

It was Howard Clark who said that the economy was like a balloon. If you squeeze it flat on one end, it bulges and grows at another.

I found that profoundly intelligent. The trick is to keep up with where it's about to bulge, and shift your focus. Life is more interesting that way too.

The really interesting part of it (to me anyway) is that we are an extremely lean company. We have no advertising and no marketing or sales team. The business is entirely from word of mouth by customers and we've had to turn away business because we didn't want to just take on things were weren't 100% ready to handle yet.

We could have taken the jobs and hired a bunch of people in a hurry but the focus isn't on making a quick buck. We do customized work and it's 100% what the customer wants and then we stand behind it completely. It's a very different business model than what I've worked in before and it seems to be what people want right now.

Quality! What a concept!

Although I'm not American, I'm gonna answer anyway! I'm in railway engineering here in Britain, and the industry is ticking along quite nicely with predictions that there is going to be a 10-15% increase in infrastructure investment in the next year. Which should keep me in a job for a while longer.