So this is how the World economy works

It is the month of August, on the shores of the Black Sea. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town. He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to choose one. The hotel proprietor takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig grower. The pig grower takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel. The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the town's prostitute that in these hard times, gave her "services" on credit. The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 Euro note to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.

The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 Euro note back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything.

At that moment, the tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 Euro note, after saying that he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism.... .

Ideas to Survive

I saw an interesting piece today that looked at what happened in the Great Depression between the first and second world wars.

It appears that, although many industries floundered, there were a couple of exceptions that bucked the trend and actually grew during that period.

They were Radio and Printing.

It has been suggested that they flourished, even boomed, as they were new and emerging mediums for business at the time.

If we look at that relative to the present, it's the Internet that shows up in the same way.
The Internet possibly has the same ingredients?

Additionally there the advantages of:

Lower cost base
You can automate much of the sales and customer acquisition process
You can automate fulfillment too

If that's true, then we should all be looking at how we can move our business to a more Internet based model to survive.

Alloy CRM, Sales and Marketing both on and off line.

Can I have a rescue package from the Government too please?

I don't think I've made any huge blunders in investment or expansion decisions.
I haven't traded in a way that I knew would produce unacceptable risk.
I haven't paid myself huge bonuses for making a loss.
I haven't stashed away any cash that was laying around into untouchable pension funds either.

All I've ever done is worked honestly and to the best of my ability with my customers interest foremost.

So what determines that some industries can have buckets full of cash thrown at them to keep them afloat in the interest of job retention?

What about the 'industry' of hard working small businesses that are going to the wall every day with the loss of 1000's of jobs?

Seems somewhat unbalanced to me - especialy when it's not us that caused the problem in the first place.

Internet sales preditions for 2009 UP!

A report in eMarketer confidently predicts an increase in internet sales of about 4% in the US. Now that's not much but against high street drops of up to 10% it seems like good news to me.

Additionally a survey by ATG also in the US at the back end of last year, in the midst of the downturn, showed that purchasers would be turning to the internet to both research their requirements and actually buy where appropriate more than ever before. One of the triggers, along with price, for a purchase was no cost delivery.

So what should we take from this?

Well, there is no doubt now that EVERY business should be represented on the internet. But more than that, it needs to show your business in a professional and trustworthy way otherwise those potential customers will just head straight back to the search listings to find someone else. We know they are spending, and making purchasing decisions, via the internet - you need to make sure your are getting your fair share of those sales.

If you need help to make your website work and produce profit, I offer a Website Profit Program designed to help and guide you.

Alloy CRM is a Sales & Marketing Strategy consultancy that helps businesses find new ways of increasing Sales, Revenue and Profit.

How are you coping with the recession?

How are you coping with the recession?

Are you taking the media line that it's a dire situation and that sales have all but stopped?

Or, like me, have you looked around the shopping malls and supermarkets? They are still very busy with shoppers returning to their cars with armfuls of shopping bags.


Now don't get me wrong. There are some sectors, like the estate agents, who are having a really rough time. Most other industries are seeing some effects but is it the complete meltdown the press seemed to revel in?


I am in no position to pass expert judgment on the situation. All I see is that business doesn't just stop completely, even in the worst of times. People don't stop buying nor are we, yet, ditching our monetary system in favour of bartering or accepting only gold pieces.

If we accept that then there is still business to be had. It might be harder to find and even harder to win, but it's still there.

To survive we need to work smarter and harder. We need to be a bit more creative in the way in which we market ourselves and we mustn't fall into the trap of switching off all our advertising and marketing budgets as that would certainly fulfil the prophesy of failing because of the downturn.

I seem to remember reading that, during the Second World War, Cadburys chocolate continued its advertising even though most of its production had been taken over to support the war effort. The payoff came later when chocolate production returned to normal and the Cadburys brand was still so well known.

Times are tough, no doubt. Look for ways to market your business more cost effectively and through a medium that allows you to test, measure and track results.


Used correctly, the Internet gives any business an excellent advertising platform to work with. Could that be the route for you to prove the media wrong and buck the recession?

If you need help with your Sales and Marketing Strategy, SEO, SEM or PPC I would be pleased to help.