Thoughts on Surviving this Economy as a Small Service Business

After over 20 years in business, the economy finally came knocking on our door, walked in, did a little staff reduction, and found a place to stay for a while. As is true for all businesses, this has been a challenging eighteen months. We are under no delusions that it is over, although we maintain hope that things are easing.

How have we survived? I can only say our survival is based on some tangible and some intangible reasons. Probably the biggest reason is commitment. The staff here at RDL have maintained a commitment to success in spite of the months our client base had dwindled, and we were marketing as creatively as we knew how in spite of our limitations both financially and experientially.

The RDL staff are an amazing group of people. They are absolutely positive that we will continue in our success and are unwilling to think or hear that there are any other options. Everyone has been a part of the belt tightening that keeps us going and although the belt has not been moved up or back a notch, we are breathing a little easier as our hard work has begun to show some results.

Some of our existing clients continue on planning their events, and some have postponed them in hopes of future funding. Our hard work and commitment has paid off in the new clients we have added to our base. One came as a referral from an existing client, one came as a result of good networking, and others have come through following leads.

Whoever said that positive thinking doesn’t work, should spend a day at RDL. We are positive that as the economy gets healthier so will our bottom line and we can loosen that old belt buckle or maybe even just buy a new belt.

~ Linda Begbie • Executive Director, RDL enterprises