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SURVIVING AND THRIVING IN A TOUGH ECONOMY
This past week I had the opportunity to present at Halifax Club on the topic of Surviving and Thriving in a Tough economy; which seemed very timely for obvious reasons.
Eastlink was on hand to film the Presentation and I'm hoping to be able to provide air dates soon.
As most of you know, I have the opportunity to present to (and train) organizations throughout the Country: but this session was different.
Different, in that it gave me a unique opportunity to see (first hand) just how much fear people have been experiencing as a result of what they’ve heard, rather than by what they are experiencing.
As you know, we publish the Island Business News publication monthly and what I notice about the Business Leaders we interview, is that they have chosen not to participate in this fear....and in most cases they are thriving as a result.
In fact, I'm curious, do you think this "often-times" media driven fear is a big reason the current situation is what it is?
I interviewed Bruce MacNaughton (from PEI Preserves) recently and his comment was (and I’m paraphrasing at best) “If you live in fear you’re going to operate your business (and life) out of fear.”
This comment sums up my feeling exactly.
Actually, if you are so inclined, you can see his exact comments by visiting http://www.youtube.com/user/zinicore and clicking on the video called “Economy.”
Which brings me to my point: I have personally never seen more people making decisions (or not making decisions as it were) based on fear, and yet, more opportunity (in my opinion) exists than any time before.
A business leader named Allan Andrew (whose hockey school was partially responsible for training Sidney Crosby) is featured in our publication this month and he summed it up in a recent newsletter when he paraphrased US Marine Commander Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller by saying...The Opportunities; they are on our left, they are on our right. They are in front of us, they are behind us. They can't get away from us now!
The irony is, I’m probably already preaching to the choir, as most of you reading this may in fact be Business Leaders who have also chosen not to participate in any "recession".
Just in case though, here is some of what I covered during my presentation:
1) Build a Mentorship Program - If you (and/or your staff) can learn from the experiences of Peak Performers, and make use of that experience, you can probably shave many years of your junior staff’s learning cure and therefore become stronger more quickly
2) Maintain your focus (ie. don’t eliminate budgets simply because “it seems like you should” – just find a better more efficient way to allocate)
3) Find and decrease your deficiencies while increasing your efficiencies (you may want to implement a short-term time tracking system to see where things are at today)
4) Decrease the amount of negative news you take in and increase the amount of positive news
5) Increase your skill set by taking part in more professional development activities
As many a wiser man than me has said before, if we simply “choose not to participate in any supposed recession, than it won’t matter what the world say’s, we will still find the opportunities.”
Yours in Success, and in Health
Corey Poirier
www.coreypoirier.com
ps. Some of the Peak Performers we interviewed this past month include:
Award Winning Songwriter Lenny Gallant
PEI Preserves Founder Bruce MacNaughton
Popular Sketch Troupe Sketch 22
Nubody's Fitness Founder Dean Hartman
