Economics of Professional Services - surviving recession 1: introduction

Continued economic problems mean slowing demand for most but not all professional services. Insolvency practitioners, for example, are likely to have a field day!

The length of the last boom means that many professionals have never experienced a downturn. I have, and it's not pleasant.

At the end of 1989, the Australian market for many professional services collapsed, down one third in a very short space of time, a leading indicator of a recession that did not in fact bottom until the middle of 1991. We were in start-up fast growth mode at the time. In responding, I think that we probably committed every mistake in the book.

Given this, I thought that it might be helpful if I did a short series of posts on the major mistakes we made.

Later, I will add a list of posts in the series at the end.

Posts in the Series

• Economics of professional services - surviving recession 2: know your business
• Economics of professional services - surviving recession 3: don't freeze all new spending
• Economics of professional services - surviving recession 4: getting the cash in