Recession is coming

It’s been a great few years for the economy and business, mostly, has been booming. However, we know from history that we are due a recession and the chances are it will hit us in the next couple of years.

This will be my third , having started work in 1992, when finding a job straight out of Uni as a graphic designer was tough. I resorted to offering my services for free, along with my then state of the art Apple Mac LCII and worked my way up from there.

My second recession was the famous “Dot Com Crash” of the early 2000’s which started with the scaremongering of the “Millennium Bug”, and then continued when the economic consequences of 9-11 hit, combined with the bubble bursting on all of the big internet investments that failed.

A few more years of growth and then we saw the “biggie”, the biggest recession of all, starting in 2008 and continuing for some years there after. In some respects we are still seeing the consequences of this terrible time and for me, it was when I changed the way I ran my businesses.

I will remember 2008 for two REALLY BIG reasons!!

1. The iPhone was launched
2. The economic crash began

The iPhone launch was momentous, especially for me as the smartphone revolution has been fundamental to my business career since then. Founding one of the first UK companies that specialised in developing smart phone apps meant the iPhone has been integral to my business ever since.

The economic crash was another game changer for me. At the time I had four big brand clients that made up 90% of my business, supplying marketing services such as website, creative and branding consultancy. In 2009, when the recession really took hold, these big brands thought it was a good idea to massively cut their marketing spend! Which meant, I had to replace a large proportion of my business, and quick!

In truth, I had become disenchanted working with large corporate businesses who had little loyalty or gratitude for their suppliers, and I was looking for an excuse to change my business model. I did this by focussing my attention on small businesses . I found that they were in desperate need of our help, they were busy running their companies and had little chance keeping up with the fast moving pace of the digital marketing landscape.

The knock on effect for my business was that now I had lots of smaller clients that all relied on my business. They were grateful, less high maintenance and because I had so many, if I lost a few, it didn’t really matter that much to the business.

This is now, one of the key benefits to becoming a BLAM Partner . Our business model is based on this principle, the principle that I was forced to adopt as part of the last recession. This means, a BLAM Partner’s business is recession proof. Spreading the turnover across multiple businesses and business sectors and helping them continue to be successful.

So as we look at the coming recession, I have to admit I’m feeling optimistic. I know small businesses will need our services and products more than ever, and the more entrepreneurs we can help, the easier the recession will be for us all.

Find out more about the BLAM Partnership Programme here, supply websites, apps and digital marketing services to small businesses around the globe.