taking the plunge in dark times

i love it when things become uncertain. it scares me but it also means things are changing. having read plenty about this economic crisis over the past few months now i see two camps forming. the hunker down and keep the powder dry till this whole saga blows over; and the roll up the sleeves and get stuck in camps. it is the later that i gravitate towards. these are the guys that are rapidly increasing their market share. willing to sacrifice some short term security for a significant mid to long term gain. as someone who witnessed and benefited from the madness of the perth property market a few years back i can safely say that to make quantum leaps one needs two vital ingredients - uncertainty and guts. simple.

so i see the likes of careerone still pushing hard with their marketing, i see vodaphone expanding their advertising and a our little shop in hawthorn is still growing month on month. why? its a cliche but we are all adopting the - best defence is a strong offence policy and reaping the rewards.

i speak to guys who are sitting and waiting and are comfortable and understand the opportunity they are forgoing. that's fine too. as long as people measure the outcomes of both options. what worries me is that the knee jerk reaction of many businesses to cut and hope that they see it through without fully appreciating the mid term implications. to those guys i suggest you include moderate growth for the next few years because you can be guaranteed that your competition is going to move ahead significantly. as times improve you will find yourself spending far more on marketing in an attempt to claw back some of the gains of the more aggressive players.

so be careful when playing with knives out there folks - someone may get hurt ;)

as for me, i am in a constant state of running and have adopted a no knife policy for fear of falling and doing some real damage.

and so it goes...