The Secret To Success In A Slow Economy

Imperial Valley News:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.’ In the first few lines of ‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ Charles Dickens was referring to conditions in the years leading up to the French Revolution; but he could just as easily have been writing about society today.

While we live in one of the most prosperous countries in the world, many Americans have in some way been negatively affected by problems with the current economy. The credit crunch has persisted despite aggressive Federal Reserve interest rate cuts; retail sales are down; thousands are concerned about losing their homes due to the sub prime mortgage crisis; and gas is so expensive, a lot of people have been forced to park their cars for the foreseeable future.

As if those problems weren’t bad enough, many Americans go from day to day fearing they may lose their jobs. For Shawn Crawford, 38, of Brownsburg, Ind., a suburb of Indianapolis, you could say the writing was on the wall. He used to be the director of operations for a physician group that operated 30 doctor’s offices across the state of Indiana.

‘I was responsible for set up, business development and customer service,’ he says. ‘At first I found the job very rewarding, but once the economy started to get bad and the rapid expansion stopped, it reached a point where I feared my own job was about to be eliminated.’

Instead of waiting around to see what would happen, Crawford decided to follow his dream to start his own business. In July of 2006, he quit his job with the physician’s group and became a consultant; but spent every spare moment researching business opportunities. Read more.