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Recessions are not new. We have had them before and will have them again. There is a saying that “those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it”. So what can we learn from businesses that successfully survived and thrived in past recessions?

McKinsey & Company researched past recessions and came up with some interesting data.  Of the companies that came out strongest – 83% increased their investment in their people during recession, while for those that came out weaker, only 21% increased their investment in their people.

What does that mean? Well – if you were a betting person you would look at the odds and reckon there was a better chance to thrive and grow if you invested in your team than if you didn’t.

They also found that companies that did better in down economies outdid their peers on capital expenditure, research and development, hiring great staff and buying assets as well as acquiring competitors businesses.

The twist is the successful companies did all of these things with a strategic end in mind. They didn’t just repeat what they had done before – they looked at their new realities as well as things they could reasonably forsee and took a strategic view of investing their resources.

Many businesses read the list of what to do and then just throw money at it. Smart businesses look at the list of what to do and then stop to work out what will work best for them, in their industry, with their conditions, with their organisational culture and their leadership team.

With marketing and copywriting, this means before leaping into campaigns, stopping to reflect on what goals you want both now and in the longer term before racing into print or web. Fuzzy goals = fuzzy business outcomes. It also means testing and measuring to see if you are actually achieving the goals you want – and then taking corrective action rather than blindly following the same path.

So the lessons from the past recessions teach us that now is the time to lay the foundations for the future – to strategically invest in the future of your company rather than closing the doors and hiding from the current situation.  If you do that, you will have a better chance of growing your business through the recession.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

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Heart Harmony – Freelance copywriters