bizRichard

 A recent survey of more than 1,000 senior executives, done by Bank of Scotland Business Banking, has found that the amount of time UK business owners spend at work has increased further during the past 12 months,

On average, those who responded were spending 50 hours a week at work - up by almost three hours (6.3%) a week compared to a year earlier. And, for some, the situation is expected to get worse as 26% of those asked said they expected to be working even longer hours as a result of the current economic downturn.

Small businesses in Scotland put in the most time at work - almost 52 hours a week - while those in the south-east clocked up 47 hours a week.

Critically too, the rise in working hours has had a knock-on effect on personal health.  71% of respondents claimed that they now felt stressed running their businesses, compared with only 54% a year earlier.

My point in highlighting this survey is – do you recognise this behaviour in yourself?

Hands up - are you working longer hours?  And if so, why?

Is it part of our ethos that when faced with uncertainty we double our efforts and work longer? What leads us to this philosophy? Does it suggest a lack of confidence, or is it the need to ‘prove’ commitment to our team, our suppliers and our customers?  Is it a ‘natural’ behaviour or do we ‘learn or copy’ this behaviour from our peers or forebears?

Or is it simply that we don’t understand our options when under perceived pressure - it is easier to work harder than it is to think things through.

If so, let me suggest to you another, methodical, approach.

It involves, firstly, taking the time out - to understand the issues and then to set priorities.

By asking ourselves (or our teams) the right questions about “what happens if . . . ?” we can identify the truly critical issues in our business, spend proper time on these, and thus ignore those annoyingly ‘loud’ but irrelevant matters.

Once you’ve assessed the critical issues, take time to generate the right solutions – and never just one solution but many different solutions.  Write these down, and don’t stop until you have 5, 10, or more possible tactics. Consider the ‘outcomes’ that you want and the result that each of your possible approaches might bring. Then rank them in order of effectiveness and feasibility.

Next, the critical stage, do something - take real and positive action.

Choose your best (highest ranked) option and implement immediately.

But, please, not by doing it all yourself – we’ve been through this one before. Take into account the resources available, and try to delegate elements of the action plan to others where possible.  Trust your team and your professionals to work in your best interests. Brief them, with absolute clarity, and monitor progress, without interfering, to ensure things advance the way you want them to.

And if your initial ideas aren’t working, don’t be ‘pig-headed and stick to them - be prepared to change tack.

Never panic - decisions made in haste are often regretted later and usually have limited effectiveness. But, as described above, by taking time to assess properly all the options available to you, delegating some of the tasks, and monitoring the results, you stand to multiply, many fold, your chances of success.

So, get out there and make effective changes to your business for optimal profits.

Richard C

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And sure as hell, all those ‘adviser’ type guys with their fancy crystal balls don’t either.

“Credit Crunch!” - the current financial ‘buzz word’ – is nothing more than an euphemism (to disguise and to deliberately and politically shift the blame) for the expected downward trend of the traditional business cycle – see my blog post dated 15th April 2008.

Here’s the story in a nutshell. Lots of people (and not just those on low incomes) ran up lots of debts. Then the ‘credit crunch’ happened. Now some of those people can’t pay their debts.

And who is to blame - not the banks who encouraged reckless borrowing, nor the governments who did nothing because it increased the national ‘feel good factor’ during their regime? No! It’s clearly the ‘credit crunch’ that is to blame.

This story sort of makes sense… up to a point. But let’s not ignore the bit that happened before the credit crunch. The bit when lots of people were sucked into euphorically signing forms that said ‘Give me a loan’ - ignoring the small print - the bit about paying it back!

But it does astound me how quickly the credit crunch bogeyman has become a handy, off-the-peg blame shield. If a business is slow in paying its debts, or has to issue a ‘profit warning’, then it happened “because of the credit crunch”.

Never mind that other factors may be at work — bad management. . . a flawed business model. . . failure to keep up with a changing market. Or plain bad luck.

The ‘crunch’ is merely the mechanism by which common sense has returned to the credit market. But in so doing, it marks the cyclical slowdown in the economy, the reduction in consumer demand, unemployment, a tightening of belts, mounting bad debts, crashing house prices, etc, etc? It’s happened before! . . . and more than likely it will happen again.

And for some this might be what is happening right now!

Credit is tight (for some) and economists are still predicting falls in house prices of about 10 percent this year. Bank of England policymaker David Blanchflower has warned prices could dive by about a third unless aggressive, immediate action is taken.

BUT . . . . The property website ‘Rightmove’ now tells us that average asking prices for property in England and Wales rose to a record high in May - 2.2 percent (on a year ago between April 13 and May 10) to hit an average £242,500, compared with a 1.3 percent annual rise in the month before – and expectations are for house price inflation to accelerate despite ‘a much weaker housing market this year’.

BUT . . . . Interest rates are unlikely to come down fast given worries over inflation and, after a decade in which house prices nearly trebled, Bank Governor Mervyn King has indicated a moderation in prices is probably needed. (Has somebody just woken up?)

BUT . . . . On the stock market the FTSE 100 is ‘climbing strongly’, recently heading for 6400+ (only 300 points off its all time high of 6700 last July) having recovered from 5300 (several months back) despite the financial press’s very best efforts at predicting doom and gloom over the past 18 months. (Note, the FTSE is an averaging index and does not segregate the better performing ‘out of the ground’ type shares from the lesser performing ’high street selling’ type shares.)

So, is it really true then, what we’ve always thought, that “recession exists only between the ears”?  Maybe it is!

Or are we in a ‘different’ world where people either don’t understand, or don’t know what to do if they do understand, or are just not interested and don’t care anyway?

Perhaps the following quote sums it up?

“Drive-in banks were established so most of the cars today could see their real owners”. (E Joseph Cossman)

Everyone seems to ‘be on credit’ – so what!

Except, being positive because I know you and I can, there remain some big opportunities out there still - if the ’so-what’ consumers are still ‘spending’ money like water it must mean that we can still keep ‘earning’ volumes of cash!!

So banish the thoughts of ‘recession’, seize the opportunity and get out there . . . make volumes more  money the SMART way

Richard C

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