Leaders focus on good news
With all the doom and gloom out there, one might ask “what good news?” Unfortunately everywhere we turn we hear or read or are told about how bad things are. As we all know there seems to be a media frenzy reminding us about how bad it is, and if that’s not bad enough, how bad it will get. At this point we have a choice: we can give in and give up, or we can decide to disagree with the pundits and seek out whatever good news we can find.
If you are not ready to give up and want to survive, there really is lots of good news to be found. But I warn you, it may be a challenge. Let’s start with the fact that there are still lots of people wanting to improve their homes and their life styles. Although it may be true that property values and home sales are down that may be exactly the right climate to promote remodeling. It may not be as busy as it was a few years ago, but there is still plenty of opportunity for those of you who are willing and able to take advantage of this economic climate.
Recently I have had a bunch of clients tell me that they are doing better than ever. I suspect the reason for this is the fact that so many other contractors have simply given up. But remember you already decided not to give in and give up – otherwise you wouldn’t have continued reading this article.
The next time you hear someone tell you how bad it is or, or, or …, keep the following idea in mind. It will be bad if you don’t do a few things right. For example if you decide now is the time to stop promoting, or now is the time to lower your prices it just may get bad for you too. If instead you decide that you will succeed no matter what, then you will be in a position to not only survive, but you will also thrive.
Please keep in mind when you hear about the business next door that isn’t doing well, that they are not you and you can be sure that they are not doing everything right. When I meet with a client and we discover one or more things that they are doing wrong I take that as good news, and the more we find that is wrong the better the news. The reason is really quite simple: if they were doing everything right and they were having problems that would be bad news. But the fact that they aren’t doing everything right really is good news because there is something to fix.