It’s easy to get traumatized reading much of the current business news…

• the Fed chairman saying that “recession is possible”;
• the head of the NBER – which officially identifies recessions (after the fact) – saying that a “severe” recession is likely;
• and grim news from the housing and financial sectors, almost daily.

Here’s something to keep in mind about recessions: by definition, they’re a departure from the norm …and hence temporary. One to three quarters, for most of them. That’s why it’s called a business cycle; it’s never a reason to realign your business to a new permanent reality, because that’s not what it is.

Here’s another curious fact: recessions happen, at least in part, because [Read more...]

We’ve certainly gotten some strange looks when we urge our B2B clients to stick with their website-renovation schedule, regardless of the state of the broader economy. But there are some very sound business reasons for doing so, and here are three of them…

In a downturn, smart companies seek to grow market share.
It turns out that down economies are the cheapest time to improve your market share, because so many companies – probably including at least some of your competitors – will retrench, almost by knee-jerk. Investing now to improve your share puts your company in a much stronger relative position coming out of the downturn, which pays obvious dividends down the road. And this isn’t just our opinion… [Read more...]