Keeping your life in balance is more important during a downturn than during your busiest working years. So many pressures are working against you when you have no work or less work: pressures about identity, meaningfulness, finances, security and your future. If you let the work or the search for work consume you, along with [...]

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August 10th 2010
Internet retail sales increased to an aggregate $32.9 billion in the U.S. during the second quarter of 2010, according to research firm comScore. That’s a 9 percent increase over 2009’s total, and represents the third straight quarter of increases after the previous weak sales during the downturn.
“The second quarter’s continuation of the first [...]

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A lot of emotional energy and time is consumed by worrying about the larger economic conditions that affect us personally and professionally. It is easy to say “Don’t worry” and difficult to do. Like with depression and rage, (see http://bit.ly/aMs2Rz)  action often overcomes dread. The energy of worry can be re-directed into useful actions.
So, you [...]

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When the Internet first began connecting the world, there was some talk (and some great science fiction) about folks never leaving their homes, living through avatars, jacked into the Net, devoid of face to face social contact.
Well, the worldly web has gone local, personal and green, re-generating neighbors and creating sustainability.
When Craigslist www.craigslist.org  first replaced [...]

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We are going to explore here the dark side, the righteous side and the upside of your battling through the emotions that accompany economic conditions you cannot control.
Recessions and depressions are depressing. Industry downturns can be worse, because you see other colleagues in other industries thriving, while there is nothing for you to do. Worse, [...]

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What more is there to say than this? It is an imperative to all CEOs. It is a discipline which must be learned, and applied, and applied again, and not neglected, until it is in your very nature. If you run a product company or service company or consultancy, you must be constantly visible in [...]

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When changes disrupt your business from market shifts in your industry, or from larger economic downturns, it is imperative that you re-assess the market’s response to your offerings that have been working prior to the disruption.
This means that you must ask these questions, as if you were starting your business anew:
What does the market need [...]

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Now, you wouldn’t think you would run into a lot of savvy entrepreneurs by spending the summer in the woods near the sea, Down East in Maine http://bit.ly/cDc9AD. Not in the little towns, or in the boatyard from which we sail. But here is just such a microcosm of small business and committed entrepreneurs, and [...]

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Between industry crashes and major economic downturns, my business has survived 5 downturns, and returned to thrive afterwards.
A colleague asked me to offer advice to entrepreneurs about how to survive economic downturns. I sent him a list of 6 strategies:
1. Create cash reserves during the good years to get through the bad years;
2. Adapt your [...]

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This statistic from the U.S. Census Bureau takes my breath away. In the midst of a terrible recession, with virtually no capital and no bank loans available, and yes, a bit of “necessity” due to unemployment – Americans stood up to the economy and kept working, likely with little revenue to the business or income [...]

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