The Credit Crunch has been a painful time for many, many people. However, for every 100 in pain, there’s one who’s leaping in joy… oh, ok, so statistics are a group of numbers looking for a fight and it might be 1 in 85 or 1 in 54 or 1 in 123… let’s not quibble over trivial details and agree that, despite the ravages of this financial storm, there have been many who have done well from it.

Who Do You Follow?

The BIG question is, of course, what did the winners do that the rest of the herd didn’t… and what can you do right now and when the next crisis hits? Sorry dudes, but there will be another financial crisis and another and another, so the sooner we learn from the last one, the more likely we’ll be in the winning team next time.

What The Losers Do

The first thing to do is look at what the losers did - they followed the other losers. As soon as the stampede starts, they all head off in the direction everyone else is going.

What the Winners Do

What do the winners do? They do the opposite. They stop and look around at what has caused the stampede and, often as not, in buffalo society, it’s no more than a puff of wind that turned dust into the shape of a predator. So stop, look and go nowhere - with the rest gone, there is more grass for you to feed on, right here! Whenever the Titanic sinks, the majority go down with the ship. However, there are always some who immediately pop up, look around and go build a better ship, an aeroplane or something that doesn’t head downward at the first sight of frozen water.

What One Winner Did

That’s the theory. Let’s look at what one company in Norway did, for a practical lesson:

Started by Mr Nordheim-Larsen, NLI started life as an engineering workshop for the lumber industry in 1936 in the little town of Tønsberg. For many years it hummed along happily and then, in the 1970’s, a slump in the worldwide forestry industry hit. NLI watched as their competitors crashed, one by one. This was not a good scene and Mr Nordheim-Larsen could have panicked, shut up shop and opened Starbuck’s first Norwegian franchise… anything but the beleaguered forestry engineering industry. He didn’t. He sat back and saw not problems but opportunities.

• After every financial crisis there is a financial recovery.
• With every engineering shop collapse there is a cheap business to buy.
• With every industry failing, there is always another on the rise.

He looked around and saw that the oil industry was suddenly interested in Norway and he was suddenly interested in the oil industry. Mr Nordheim-Larsen was not only a calm visionary, he was a courageous warrior - he acted. He bought up failing competitor after failing competitor, as long as they had synergies with NLI’s regrouping and retooling for the oil industry. His vision and courage were rewarded.Then, by the early 2000’s, many of Norway’s traditional engineering workshops were feeling the bite of another economic downturn. Though the market was low, Mr Nordheim-Larsen not only saw the potential but also dared to act and acquired companies with their own technologies - technologies that complemented NLI’s. Again, Mr Nordheim-Larsen knew the hard economic times would not last. His company started acquiring struggling businesses that were in line with both the NLI expertise and the oil and gas industry market. In the last 10 years NLI has continued to grow both organically and by acquisition.

NLI’s turnover for 2007 was 900 million NOK and for 2009 it was 1.5.billion NOK. And, no, 2010 does not promise to be a great year. In fact, it could be a bad year. However, what NLI have done is anticipated the credit crunch over a year before most people knew it was here, made their staff reductions, cut back on plant and material orders, restructured loans and now they’re ready to ride the next (rough) year with more finesse that most… and they’re already picking up failing businesses that will enhance their stable of technologies into the next financial upturn.

Mr Tor-Martin Roed, Chief Operational Officer Marketing for NLI, says that, besides vision and courage to act, there are two other factors to their success:

1. Firstly, they concentrate on what their particular skills are and they develop those with total focus. It is always tempting to leap into other markets or acquisitions that show promise but, unless they have synergies with NLI’s core competencies, they are rejected. They look closely at where their skills are and continue to develop those further.
2. Secondly, they have a high focus on developing their people. Because the company has a large percentage of highly skilled and educated people, the continuing training and development of everyone, from management on down, is a top priority.

What Can We Learn?So, whether you’re an international engineer to the oil industry, a cafe or an individual, what can we learn from this? Four things:

1. Vision - rather than follow the hoi polloi, the herd, stop and look around. Things are never as they seem and all things must pass… even credit crunches.
2. Courage - back your hunches, take action. Do something to tell your grandchildren about.
3. Stick to your knitting, boys and girls - what do you do best? Do it better, differently, with more creativity, with more panache. However you do it, make it the thing you’re best at.
4. People your life with people - none of us is an island and the more we connect with people - especially successful people - the more we can all help each other.

Sermon over!

I am a writer with business qualifications and experience…

I am a qualified accountant (BBS ACA) and have been a company director and business owner, university lecturer, business coach and corporate trainer.

Then I was a newspaper reporter. Then I was editor and then publisher (owner) of a national, monthly magazine for several years.

I have 9 published books - 6 paper ones and 3 ebooks on SmashWords website. And now I am a freelance writer, writing for clients in Australia, Czech Republic, Norway, Germany, Romania, Arabia, Britain and America…

… and I’m always looking for more work. See articles at The Write Site website - http://www.thewritesite.biz