The Winds of Change 

I spoke to an old client yesterday who runs a business in the travel sector and I expected to hear a tale of hard times, low bookings and cut backs as their prices got higher with the pound getting weaker. It couldn’t have been further from the truth, they are scaling new heights every year and the business is going from strength to strength.

Over the past couple of years, the company has invested in new destinations, expanded their offering, whilst always staying core to their values, offering high end service and holidays at a reasonable price. Their result shows that by investing in your business you can grow, despite what Brexit is throwing at us.

Make no bones about it, they know that there may be tough times ahead as they can suck up the additional costs this year, but things are likely to get tougher in the next few years until the final Brexit position is confirmed. However, this particular business is not prepared to take it lying down and just cut costs, they are determined to grow and their strategy is to continue the growth, providing excellence and reasonable prices and expanding their offering.

Many of their competitors are taking a different approach and are already trimming down their offering and cutting their investment in marketing and promotion. Unfortunately the result for these businesses will, at best, be a much smaller, less profitable business, at worst they will go under and there are already signs that this is happening.

During the recession of 2008, we worked with a number of businesses who knew that they needed to invest in their services and how they marketed. They knew they needed to do more to not just stay level but to grow and it was these businesses that came out of the recession well.

In any economy where there is uncertainty, for whatever reason, there are two types of business, those who fight, they invest in themselves, increasing the effectiveness of their sales and marketing, developing their products and services and continuously looking to stay ahead of their competitors. There are also those businesses who look to “batten down the hatches”, maintaining current customers, not looking for new ones. Sticking with their current products not developing new ones. I will leave it to you to decide which type of business will do better.

With all the uncertainty around Brexit, there is only one thing to do and that is get on with business, look at ways to grow, look at ways to increase your effectiveness and most importantly look at how to stay ahead of your competitors both in terms of products and services and your marketing, make sure you are the ones winning new customers. How will you ride the winds of change, will you enable your business to scale the heights, or will you try and look for a compromise?

What do you think, what is your strategy for growth over the next few years, let me know.