How are many firms dealing with the recession?

… Nothing seems a popular option. Why not take Sir Francis Bacon’s advice?

What are firms doing about the recession?

I suspect many are hiding under the bedclothes and hoping it’ll go away. Or maybe they are like this deer.

I get this impression from one fact and one observation.

The fact is that firms are sitting on big piles of cash and doing nothing with it. As Sir Francis Bacon remarked in an essay, “Money is like muck. Not good except it be spread.”

It is a cliché that the best time to act is when all your competitors aren’t. That is the case in a recession. Your money will get you better deals. You will have a greater share of voice. And so on.

Boring, boring, boring – except that this simple lesson seems lost on those who should have it off by heart.

The observation I refer to confirms what the effects of the fact are.

The other day I went to a big do at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which I shall write about when my hangover recedes and I am less mystified.

I spent a little time talking to a colleague who, like me, built a big direct marketing agency in the days back when and sold it for (I hope for his sake) loadsamoney. I asked him how things were.

“Tricky. Clients say they’re going to do things but keep delaying and very often end up doing nothing,” he replied lugubriously.

Those piles of cash are losing value every day.

Put them to work.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

1 Comments

  1. Newdell

    My competitors are fools. I’m about to eat them alive! Thanks to you I have some good ideas about how to do so. sn

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