Some Credit Crunch Tips For Business!

So I was minding my own business. Well actually trying to manage my own business when I received a mail from my Bank Relationship Manager asking if I could help her out. Imagine my surprise, it is most definitely me asking the Bank for help not the other way round! Needless to say I decided to do what was being asked of me and there are 2 versions in this blog. The first is the full article from HSBC and the second is the edited version of just little old me!!!!

I hope it helps someone!!!

Just Little Ole Me!!

The First day of the rest of your life!!!

So there I was reading through a colleagues blog earlier today (http://paulsmania.blogspot.com/) when I found myself thinking, 'You know what Simon, you should really do one of those!' Then the panic, and the self doubt. What will I say, how will it sound, will anyone actually read it. After careful consideration I decided that none of that mattered and as part of my ongoing learning I would jump right into it.

So what the heck is all this about I here you ask, well simply put I will be imparting my, possibly useless, knowledge in the blog. Along with my business experiences, even down to the simple don’t try this at home type of thing. It pains me to say so, but I have made many, many mistakes in my life. Some have definitely been larger than others. My philosophy is that your gut is usually right, unless of course you had a serious curry the night before, so trust it and act quickly. If you don’t act, someone else will. This works in good times as well as in bad. An example within Merchandise Mania would be my missus, Lisa, coming up with the idea for Recycled Mania. This was specifically to provide services that were only available in a limited way from other companies. What it meant to our customers was that they could find leading edge environmentally friendly products from us, a good six months before the general market could get close. We were manufacturing fleece made from 22 plastic water bottles before 90% of the High Street stores. Of course the important thing from this for our customers was that they were way ahead of their competition in terms of creativity, and ethical accountability……Priceless!

Ok, so I guess the first one is at an end….keep checking back and lets see if we can learn together.