Recession Anarchist

Recession Anarchist By Alan Forrest Smith This is a true story of an entrepreneur hairdresser that beat the last recession! The bank manager wouldn't lend me a penny despite the fact I had a plan! Okay it wasn't quite a plan, in fact it was a fill-in-the-blanks 'thing' that I bought from a business consulting company. I simply got it, filled in the blanks and walked into the bank. What else would you expect from a school-drop out with no qualifications? The guy was an total idiot. He told me how good his son was at fishing and how he had caught one of the biggest Carps in the local Bridge water canal. He then talked to me about how his other son was going to university to advance his teaching career. He told me some others stuff until finally he said to me ... "what is it you want?" in an elevated, you're not as good as me voice. I said to him... "can I have £25,000 please, I have a plan to grow and move my hairdressing salon" He slowly slid his cheap glasses down his oily nose, looked over the top of them with a slightly frowned look and asked for my business plan. I nervously handed the plan over to him that I had filled out just hours before over breakfast! He looked, he asked and he finally said ... "are you kidding, you'll be B.U.S.T in no time! And with that response I walked away from my bank feeling totally deflated and beat. Around 2 hours later I decided to sign for the lease on the new building anyway. I had no cash. I really wanted it. I knew in my heart I could really make it happen. After just 18 months I had the number one hair and beauty salon in a town saturated with another 35 salons! And here's a point worth considering ... it was in the thick of the last recession in the UK. I proudly I moved my salon from 250 square feet to 2,000 square feet. I made it happen. HOW? By becoming a recession Anarchist, a dissenter, a rebel, a mutineer, a nonconformist - call it as you want - I simply created my own rules and played by them, not theirs (the media and system) So let me explain. I was reading just yesterday in the news paper how one of the UKs biggest stores are now slashing their marketing budget. In fact it gave a huge list of stores doing something very similar. And that is something most will do during a recession. It's what I call 'subservient-sheep-thinking' or in others words, do-as-your-told, believe what we say, follow and say nothing mindset. So because the 'system' the media, the shop next door, the financial times, the wall street journal say ... "tighten your belts, recession is coming" ... THEY DO AS they are told! And what is really interesting is who gives the reports of coming doom and gloom? Is it twenty something reporters that have only ever worked in and office and have zero experience in real business? Is it hardened wall street people that act almost like lemmings in any situation? Is it a news guy looking for a headline to sell his/her newspaper or magazine? Is it people that have never in their life taken a risk, run a business, put their life on the line for a business, risked everything to make business work? The answer is simple most of the people that are feeding you endless crap of approaching apocalyptic downturn have no idea when it comes to being in business so my question is this ... "why do we hold on to almost everything the report?" So back to my recession beating salon. Although we grew a massive amount during this recession we hardly spent a bean on adverting and marketing. Here's just a few things we did. ~ discovered guerrilla marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson and used almost every page in his book to create zero cost advertising. ~ kept busy and focused on the job in hand. ~ ignored external reports from everyone that had nothing to do with my business about how crazy I was and how it'll fail. ~ never once gave in (although I had moments) until the business was flying. ~ we had a list of at least 5 marketing strategies that cost almost nothing we would carry out 6 days a week! So here's what I think. You need to be a media Anarchist, a recession anarchist to survive. Throw away the rule book, create your own success and remember what the guys that give all this news and bad reports usually have zero experience with what you are doing. I believe 2009 will be one of my best years ever, do you? It can be. Take control of your own life. make your own decisions. Become a... Recession Anarchist! I’d love your comment on this. Don’t forget to add your website to the comment. This blog gets a lot of traffic. I’d love to send some your way. Regards, Alan Forrest Smith http://www.OrangeBeetle.com http://www.OrangeBeetleFamily.com http://www.BecomeaCopywriter.co.uk http://www.AlanForrestSmith.com/blog http://www.OrangeBeetle.com/blog http://www.SalonPunk.com