Email from “The Bob Pritchard Radio Show”
My first email today is from Alan Johnson in Sydney, Australia. Alan, that is my home away from home. It is midday there on Wednesday so you are probably listening at work.
Alan writes… Dear Bob, great show I have listened for the past few weeks and the information you provide is great. I run a small printing business and with the slowdown in the economy, companies have cut down on their printing, which has resulted in a big slowdown in sales for us. It’s not just our company, but all of our competitors are feeling it too.
Alan, even in a slowdown there is still a lot of work out there. Now is the time to get active and start being creative. You need to aggressively take business off your competitors, create new offers and generate new ideas.
A friend of mine who is a printer, hadn’t cold called for years because work kept coming in but here in the US, when the slowdown occurred, it was much worse than in Australia. Despite being the boss and having, I think about 15 employees, he began knocking on doors. On the very first day he picked up 6 jobs from his competitors.
The problem is that when business gets tough, people resign themselves to it. Don’t! It’s now time to get off your butt, let the competitors go out of business. As far as being creative, I don’t know the printing business but I do know that when Mad Cow disease hit the UK, one entrepreneur offered his cows as billboards. He got takers and it helped pay the bills.