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Recession- A self-fulling prophecy?

How long has it been since we started reading and hearing stories about a recession? 1 year? 2 Years? Are we in a recession now but don’t know it? Is one really coming?

I’m sure many business owners if not most people working in businesses as leaders, managers and employees are asking themselves these types of questions. I can’t tell you whether we are in a recession, heading for a recession or neither, but I do have some thoughts I’d like to share.

Going Cheap on customer service

I recently read this article, Don’t Hang Up on Your Customers | Inc.com by Carey Smith, founder of Big Ass Fans. In it he talks about the danger of cheaping out on customer service. As the financial leader of several companies throughout my career, I’ve often led exercises about cutting costs. Typically, these exercises were started and then the plans implemented because an existing (not anticipated) recession was happening and the ability of the company to meet its obligations and survive were at stake.

The 4th option

I recently had the great fortune to attend a presentation by Dr. Kaihan Krippendorff, founder of Outthinker (www. Outthinker.com). “Outthinker” refers to outthinking your competition and how doing that can generate huge growth in customers, sales, profits and value. They key to Dr. Kaihan Krippendofff’s talk was about finding “The Fourth Option” which he describes as changing how you play the game.