The
pain in our market at the moment is immense, and business decline continues to
surprise and frustrate traders.There are no prizes for making the statement
“Times are tough” and the real difficulty comes when a trader asks “Well what are you going to do
about it?”
There
are two things to say about the “doing” bit. Firstly, we are our own masters.
The big attraction of being a market trader is the independence - the ability
to forge our own path, do our own thing, and to some extent control our
destiny. The buck stops with us. Secondly, the path ahead is difficult and
confused. This is one of those times when some of us need help. We need a plan.
Finding
a path at the moment is a nightmare. We do the right things, make good product
choices, offer friendly service, work our backsides off, but still customers
don’t buy. We are in the middle of a consumer recession, and worst of all, the
slope appears to be getting slipperier.
Times
are tough. A common trader cry is that nobody seems to care - “Nobody comes to
talk to us about our problems”. That is not really true. There is a mentor
program, and yes you have to make the first step, but experienced business
people are ready and waiting to assist. In fact more than just listening
(although mentors will do a lot of that) you get an experts view on how to
manage your business in a retail recession.
There
are two reasons why mentors are a great idea. Firstly they remove the emotions,
particularly those created by financial frustration. Secondly, they aren’t held
back by past practice. No matter how forward thinking we are, we can often be
influenced by how we have done things in the past. An independent, rational,
and objective examination of our business practices is a really smart idea.
This
editorial didn’t start off to be an endorsement of the mentor program but it
does seem to be the right course for many. We all need to get some structure
into our business analysis, remove the emotion, and create a plan that can be
measured and monitored. The final outcome may be a path to survival and
hopefully success, or it may just indicate the best time to get out. Either
way, we are taking action rather than just waiting, and hoping, or relying on
someone else to fix our problems.
What
is your plan? If you don’t have one, why not book a mentoring session? It might
be the best business decision you have made in years.
Mentoring
connections:
Katya Ellis - Trader Connect Co-ordinator - Tel.
Email Katya - qvm@sbms.org.au
SBMS Website - www.sbms.org.au