I own a hair salon. Typically, November is my busiest season. It has been SO quiet. A lot of my colleagues are also saying the same thing and have had to close up shop because of it - or get a second job.
People keep saying it will get better and the economy will bounce back but I don’t know. I am so close from just throwing in the towel, closing up shop and getting a corporate gig.
Your advise is spot-on. Many many years ago I read that the key trait of successful companies is that they are “ruthless.” At the time I thought that was silly…why be ruthless? Shouldn’t you be nice? Ruthless sounds mean and unfair.
It took me a while to realize that in this context, ruthless means always hustling, always pushing, never letting up, leveraging advantages, not letting yourself get screwed over, etc.
If you’re nice and casual and laid back, business might work out for a while — until it doesn’t. Until your main leads dry up and people don’t want to pay your prices anymore and you haven’t been differentiating yourself or keeping up with the latest and greatest and you haven’t been pushing your team to be the best that they can be. And then you scramble and either survive or fold.