EVERYTHING Begins And Ends With A Thought.
Down News recently explored the public’s views by doing a vox pop in Newcastle about supporting local businesses. It was surprising the number of people coming to Newcastle from other provincial towns in Co Down to shop. Many cited that their own town shopping centre’s had become run down and did not offer the right kind of products and services, and customer care that they expected.
People from Portadown and Lurgan to Portaferry and Lisburn explained an all-too-familiar phenomena… the closure of shops in town centre’s and the subsequent running down of the area with a disastrous effect on the moral of the wider community and the spirits of the business community.
This predicament calls for extraordinary out-of-the-box thinking. There are several points I would like to contribute to the discussion based on observation of this recession in our Co Down business environment. There are many more points I could make, and more that you could put. But the discussion has to accelerate. We all need to be pitching in to it. Social media contributed to the fall of dictators in the Middle East. Surely, it has something to offer in fighting this recession and the decline of town centres.
So, here is my small offering hoping it will stimulate discussion possibly on Facebook. I believe we need to create a new business ethic to come out of our present difficulties. It will require openness, honesty, courage, commitment and a lot of hard work. It will need to be top down-bottom up. But it is achievable. We need to move from lose-lose to win-win.
This week past the number of new businesses looking for start up support through the Go For It Programme at Down Business Centre is up. This is good news. But it will still be a long haul before strong local economic recovery is complete. There were signs too from the Federation of Small Business that there was an improvement in the economy.
You may agree or disagree with some of the ideas. If we throw a few balls up in the air and the movers and shakers run with them, then we will at least have achieved something.
Food For Thought
1. Business people need to accept that this is a crisis affecting us all, not just the few vulnerable less sustainable businesses. Denial is rife. We need to dispel views that this recession is going to go away ‘soon’. We need to accept that building new individual and co-operative strategies and relationships is absolutely essential.
2. There should be an inter-agency think tank on-going to try and find ways to reduce costs for small business and fast-track cushions such as the Small Business Rate Relief Scheme.
3. There should be set up a one-stop shop supported by the local business and development agencies to support small businesses by signposting, advising, mentoring etc. It basically means partially redeploying some staff already in post. This may exist in part but needs to be re-launched as a specific driven, anti-recession strategy.
4. Business people need to be more realistic too. Market circumstances can and do change sometimes rapidly. As Charles Darwin said, it is not the strongest who survive but the most adaptable. How versatile are you in responding to new ideas, new trends, new tastes etc etc that just could be a new angle in your business? Hoping that your current modus operandi will continue may just be asking too much.
5. Politicians need to be more involved with the business community and should be involved in trying to lever opportunities and funding to assist small businesses as much as lobbying and publicly making supportive comments.
6. Also, business people need to do an audit on their own business skills using business coaches especially if they have been running the same business for a considerable time. They may require re-skilling. Admiting this is also a difficult point and being more self-aware will contribute to a fuller and healthier response to changing business circumstances… it may make the difference between survival and business failure.
For example, why not inquire about the highly recommended ‘Mary Portas’ business course at SERC?
7. Local business people should also try and improve their networking within the business community and beyond. Running a small business can often lead to a repetitive work habit where you meet the same customers and business contacts daily day and it may be difficult to re-charge such a business facing pressures.
8. Just as a major change of mindset was necessary to end the Troubles, a momentum needs to be created similarly to do the same for the recession. It must start locally. Why is Australia doing very well at the moment? Because it is relatively self-contained and Australian businesses are feeding into other Australian businesses. We should learn from this. Supporting a campaign to support local business is therefore essential and proven.
9. We have to accept people for what they are and not be judgemental about them. We may often be wrong. In wider group dynamics the process of displacement may occur and we may be tempted to focus our negative thoughts on particular businesses or areas at the expense of addressing the real issues. Scapegoating is a fact of human nature and we must see it for what it is. We therefore need to be more empathetic and understanding to our fellow businesses.
10. And lastly, how many of us actually systematically buy local goods and services? We need to be constant, proactive, and visible. Maybe we need a good car sticker campaign to get this going.
So, if you have any ideas on this topic, feel free to reply and discuss. I will also post this on Facebook for comment and your thoughts.
Everything begins and ends with a thought.]]>
