Failure for us is not an option

I’ve been getting a few interesting letters recently and I loved this one from Julian Athawes of Halomec in answer to my blog post last week (What would you achieve if you knew you couldn’t fail?) talking about how important attitude is for the success of a company…

Hi Gavin,

I must admit to normally ’skimming’ over your mails, I will try to absorb the content a little more in the future as there is some good stuff in there.  I have just stuck the attached poster on our office wall… (poster received but I can’t use it here as I do not have the image rights!)

Anyway,  this is what I wanted to share with you:

Right now, I should be sitting in Ashton Gate football stadium waiting for Lord Sugar to dispense some pearls of wisdom to the attendant masses, courtesy of Business Link.  At 8am this morning I told my wife that Alan Sugar is not going to recover last months dire sales figures (and those of previous months) and, that my morning would be better spent on the phone trying to win some business.

I was going to ask him what the most significant initiative he had initiated to mitigate the effects of the recession.  I won’t get to ask him that now, but his answer is probably a world away from the realities that I face running a tiny business.  Yes, we’ve done all the obvious stuff – cut overheads, reduced stock, not reduced prices, etc We share our financial predicament with our staff – warts and all.  You may say that we shouldn’t burden or scare our people to this level.  That may be the case for some organisations but, for us it works and our colleagues have responsed fantastically.

I firmly belive what will initiate the recovery from recession in the UK is the attitude and the determination of small businesses.  They can respond quicker, be more focussed, specialised and flexible.  They can grow rapidly -  if every member of the FSB took on 4 employees, nearly a million jobs would be created.

Thre is no point moaning about our predicament or blaming the banks and wallowing in the mire of self pity.  We do not have the option to hide under the duvet until the recession passes.  The answer for us is to put more effort in. More hours, more miles, more calls.  There is still business out there – we just have to work harder to win it.  It can get demoralising, but we have nowhere else to go. Your mail was very timely – hence the poster.

As with Travis Pastrana on his motorbike, failure for us is not an option. I am determined to succeed.

Thanks for that one Julian. A Sales Success CD is on the way to you with my compliments.

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