When bad weather hits, we are always looking for someone to blame for the impassable roads – the local council doesn’t have enough salt or the central government has acted with inadequate fervour to overcome our frosty difficulties.
The same happens in a downturn when our businesses don’t live up to our expectations. Is it not time to change our solution to match the market and cease blaming the greater-unchangeable?
Should recruitment agencies not move to become business efficiency agencies? Should estate agents not start a local email magazine interviewing 5 interesting people a day and challenging staff to get 20 new opt-in readers per day? Should small building manufacturers not start blogging on how new school playgrounds could be built, only to be thought leaders when times get better? Perhaps they should or shouldn’t. One thing is clear, as the market changes, the businesses that move to match change will survive. Those that shake their fist angrily at government will freeze.
Online marketing is the new business efficiency agency, the new estate agent, the new manufacturer. Those that get with the programme early will survive. Those that fail to understand the power of community and local leadership will struggle.