How to run a successful business during a recession?

Recessions can be hard-hitting, and especially when you are running a business, these times can be challenging for all the business owners. While a lot of people feel that staying in jobs can help them survive these tough times, one must also understand that a business has to be present for them to have jobs ultimately. So, for those who have their companies and are trying to cope with it during such tough situations, here are some valuable tips.

These tips might come handy to everyone that is part of the leadership group. It is always about having alternatives that have changed the directions of every business. So, in this article, we have made an effort to churn out some simple but, practical steps that can help you keep your business going during the time of recession  

1.       Always remember to stay calm 

Most of the time, business owners end up losing their patience in listening to the word ‘recession,’ and how far is it going to take us if we keep panicking? Well, as businessmen, you would have gone through such tough situations already, and this is one of those. Staying calm can help you to diversify your thoughts. Instead of focusing on the problems, you shall start working towards the solutions. Hence, this is one of the essential things that every business owner should learn to adapt to during the times of recession.

2. Be prepared for the worst 

You must always stand and face the challenges bravely. You have to learn to be prepared for the worst. At times, everything would fall apart but, it is always your attitude that is going to change the course of direction of your life. Stay updated with the latest news and the trends that are happening in your space.

Keeping yourselves updated on the on-going trends would give you a complete insight into getting prepared to face the challenges. If you ignore everything that is happening around you, then you might end up losing every single penny that you would have earned.

3. Develop an alternative skill

Do not just be okay with the skillset that you are good at. Follow the current trends and pick up on a new skill. These skills would further become your strength. It is always recommended to understand the graph of the recession and see where the opportunities lie.

Even if you are slightly good at one of the skillsets then, you can take a chance of exploring it. This can make you a multi-skilled person, and once the period of recession passes by, you can think of having another business on the same lines.

4. Wait for the storm to calm down 

Every storm has to calm itself down. Hence, you need to develop an enormous amount of patience and perseverance. Being an entrepreneur, you would have spent enough amount of time knowing things related to the economy and recession. Hence, you would have already had your bit of research done as well. Therefore, it is always good to think of alternative plans and wait for the storm to calm by itself.

5. Accepting the situation

Most of the entrepreneurs and amateur business owners would end up losing their business during tough times because they fail to accept the position. One must understand that the recession is going to take a toll on each and everyone’s lives. With this fact being accepted, you would start working on the alternative plans to sustain your business rather than sitting idle and spending time on futile work.

6. Keep in constant touch with your business partners

Always remember to stay in contact with all your stakeholders. They are going to possibly help you to come out of this situation pretty quickly. By exchanging ideas and having constant meetings with your business partners would help you to think better and clearly. Ideas should never be left unattended hence, having regular conversations related to the business would give you a scope to think differently and survive through the recession.  

7. Lower your expenses 

Well, this is on the personal front. Recessions won’t happen overnight. You would start noticing a dip in the graph of your business, following news related to the economy would also help you in planning your expenses. So, cut down on the unnecessary expenses during such times in order to keep your business going.

8. Read autobiographies of entrepreneurs

Almost all the top-notch business tycoons of the world would have started their businesses small one day. If they have risen to such fame today then, it is because of all the obstacles and hurdles that they would have experienced. Well, reading about such people in business would always help you to stay motivated, and their experiences would also give an idea to help your business to survive.

9. Keep your business open 

Just because it is recession does not entirely shut the business. Make sure that you keep the business open, and instead of spending money on unnecessary marketing strategies’, you can shift towards online marketing. These strategies might not help you in lead conversions at the very moment, but, once the tough times pass by, you may be able to generate a lot of leads. Hence, this is one of the most important things that you need to do when the recessions hit.

10. Do not stop working 

No matter whatever the situation is, you should continue to work. Your business is your dream, and just because of one tough job, you should not stop working. Visit the office and ensure to maintain the office space clean, and if it is a manufacturing unit, make sure to keep the machinery in running condition. Else, you may end up spending a lot of money in getting the machinery up and running. So, continuing to put efforts towards your work would pay you off one day.

Well, we hope that these tips would help all the business owners to overcome any tough situation. Follow these strategies as part of the leadership strategies to keep your business going. 

                                                                                                                                                                       

The Girl I Love - Amit Nangia - Reviewed!

“It didn’t take her long to reach his place. All she had to do was to pull on her comfortable old jeans, wear a top, shove her hairbrush and Mac make-up kit into her handbag, pull out some suitable clothes for work the next day and that’s about it”. Myra, a beautiful thirty-year-old lady in search of a suitable partner to get married and settled but unfortunately she longs to get into Kairav’s arms all the time. Kairav, Myra’s best-friend and boss with the phobia of commitment get into flings and casual relationships with other women despite knowing that he has feelings towards Myra. His casual and flirty nature makes Myra apprehensive of his love and she refrains from confessing her love to him.

As the story progresses, Kairav loses two relationships back to back and seek Myra’s help to get rid of his pain. The story begins when Myra gets a call from Kairav in the wee hours and as she reluctantly pulls her car out and drives down to his apartment Kairav gets drawn to her beauty and he recollects the day they had made out in Shimla very long time back. Kairav’s mind keeps hovering around the same thing repeatedly and his craving to get Myra becomes an obsession. 

He protects Myra from all the other business partners and also tries to keep her away from Akhil, a guy who truly loves Myra and wants to get married to her. Although Myra first confronts Kairav about his behavior towards the other men in her life, she secretly admires his care and concern towards her. Would Kairav’s phobia towards commitment allow him to break al the shackles and unite with Myra or would Myra be left heartbroken and does she gets married to Akhil? Would Kairav ever realize that Myra is the girl he always loved?

Amit has made an effort to describe the characters at their best but at times it becomes too banal. The scenes are repetitive as the plot just occurs in just three places; office, home, and Shimla. Every scene written is attached to the couple making love and it becomes boring. Kairav, being the most eligible bachelor has all the qualities which any woman would desire to have but at times his desperation towards sex makes the character a little off balance. The plot could have been a little gripping and the storyline could have been mature. The writing justifies the genre yet, there could have been more twist in the plot inducing that sensationalism in the readers' mind.

The relationship best-friend has lost its essence in this book because it is more of Friends with benefits relationship which has been described by the author with the title ‘Best Friends’ and this is extremely disappointing.

Click here to buy this book from Amazon

My Mute GirlFriend by Himanshu Rai - Reviewed!

“Please Vaidehi, you can’t let me do this sin, please forward your palm and let me touch…one last time” 

Author: Himanshu Rai

Genre: Romance

Rating: 2.5 / 5

Well, after a long time a book made me so emotional. Himanshu Rai has given his best piece of work to his readers I must say. The story is touching and very well woven, it is simple and connected easily as I flipped the pages. I must confess that I finished reading all the 208 pages of the book in 3 hours. It has been quite some time since I got glued to a book like this. It was a fast read and an enjoyable one for sure.

The Cover Page - My Mute Girl Friend by Himanshu Rai

The characters Rohan, Vaidehi, Akash, Rahul, Vineet, Reena, and Chaaru have been brought to life by the author effortlessly. It is a typical love story that happens almost in every student’s life hence, it can connect to the audience at ease. The best bit in the book which I loved the most is about the boys’ hostel life and the way the other boys tease Rohan linking with Vaidehi. The language is simple and easily understandable.

The story starts when Rohan, a Telecommunication Engineer receives a message from his long-time lover, Vaidehi. Rohan, a boy from Sagar, Madhya-Pradesh who takes a break to study for his entrance develops a huge attraction towards his junior at school Navya and puts his heart and soul to clear the entrance exams to become an Engineer. His idea of getting into an Engineering course is to propose Navya and convince his parents to accept their relationship.

Being an average scorer right from his school days Rohan happens to meet Vaidehi during his course counseling at one of the centers. He gets smitten by her right at the first meet and chooses the same college and stream as hers just because he gets to see her despite having tremendous passion towards Computer Science. The two of them become very good friends and slowly as the relationship evolves, Rohan starts to get confused to choose between Navya and Vaidehi. While Vaidehi is famous for her high attitude and arrogance she reveals a different persona of hers to Rohan which draws him towards her completely.

He gets into a deep dilemma if he still loves Navya or was it actually an infatuation or is it just Vaidehi who is made for him! He seeks his sister’s help and makes the choice of proposing Vaidehi on the New Year’s Eve. Vaidehi and Rohan get inseparable and Rohan invites Vaidehi and his friends to his sister Surbhi’s wedding. When everything seems picture perfect, Vaidehi breaks-up with Rohan and goes absolutely “MUTE” without any reasons for five long years. While all his friends warn Rohan that he is dumped by her Rohan, still believes that she would certainly come back one day because he sensed the spark in her eyes which he had never found in anyone else. Do you think Rohan would end up being with his girl-friend Vaidehi or would he lose her forever?

As I flipped through the pages

The story is not complex and easy to understand but at times it becomes too melodramatic and takes a turn towards some Bollywood movie. The scenes of the final letter drafted by Vaidehi to Rohan sounds very artificial and the way he feels her in the hospital and college is way too exaggerated. The content gets mundane during the second half when Vaidehi decides to keep quiet. This bit also transports you to a filmy mood. Had the Bollywood twist not been given to the climax; then this would have definitely been a brilliant piece of writing.

The climax of the book is high on emotions and the author Himanshu has the ability to easily penetrate the readers' mind with his words but should have worked more on giving a real ending to the story. The story could have been a little more gripping because somewhere it becomes too ordinary, predictable and repetitive and that’s a buzzkill at times. There are minor grammatical and editing errors in the book.

The characters could have been described a little bit more and that could have made the readers visualize well. The characters of Anna, Vineet, Akash, Chaaru, and Reena are not even touched upon. Their characters are also equally significant as the protagonists. The cover page of the book looks very filmy and glossy and a redesign of it would certainly do justice to the content inside.

Click here to order the book from Amazon

The Game Of Secrets by Saurish Hegde - Reviewed!

Author: Saurish Hegde
Genre : Fiction (Partial Sci-Fi)
Rating 2/5

This book revolves around the protagonist Nishanth - 32, an eligible bachelor, who is a famous Oncologist by profession and is passionate about becoming a politician. Hailing from an influential family from Mangaluru Nishanth's Dad Mr. Vittal Hegde is also a renowned oncologist in Mangaluru. 

While his father runs a hospital with three other partners Kiran Dev, John and MohanDas Kumar; Nishanth, works with them to gain experience and expand his wings in Mangaluru as a good medical practitioner. Nishanth has nothing to worry about except for being single and at times loneliness strikes Nishanth and he longs to be in a companionship. 

The Cover Page of "The Game of Secrets"

Nishanth, for his passion towards Politics, finds out an eminent and energetic leader Kashyap and helps him in raising a party but the opposition leaders Adishakthi and Dhanush shatters the dreams of Kashyap and Nishanth when things start favoring them. 

As he curses his misfortune of still remaining single, he accidentally comes across Navya, daughter of a business tycoon and a family friend of Vittal Hegde in one of the parties. He gets smitten by her beauty right at the first sight and asks her out with a lot of hesitation. Navya, a fashion designer by profession has plans of starting an apparel store at Mangaluru and in Paris too. Despite the nervousness, Nishanth asks Navya out and after a couple of dates, the two get intimate and serious about the relationship.

Click here to buy "The Game of Secrets from Saurish Hegde"

While both his professional and personal life are falling into their places Nishanth has a new task to take up and his love for science forces him to break-up with Navya as well. He also moves away from Kashyap, handing him over all the responsibilities of the party and goes to Switzerland to meet Mr. Ramdas. Ramdas, a renowned scientist who is in quench of finding a host for his experiment of fusing hegdrons, an element that has the ability to turn humans into super-humans seek Nishanth's help. The plot here gets interesting and to know what these hegdrons are, I recommend you buy the book.

The plot gets nail-biting when Nishanth gets a death threatening call regarding the powers he would have gained after getting the Hegdrons fused into his body. the conspiracy that gets created by the kith and kin of Nishanth has been plotted well.

Saurish has given his best shot to come up with a book of his choice, however, the language used in the book is very immature and sometimes sounds too casual as well. The flow of the sequences also gets messed up at times and this can make it slightly difficult to follow the storyline.

As I went through the chapters

The plot of the story could have been more interesting had the author tried to bring in the power of Nishanth after undergoing the experiment of getting the hegdrons fused successfully into his blood. This bit has not even been touched upon apart from a couple of scenes where he gets to examine a couple of patients. One Mrs. Anita, Navya's distant aunt and the other lady from a village who comes for a treatment at the hospital.

Most of the time the protagonist has been showcased as being nervous, timid and low on self-confidence and this sometimes puts off the reader. The scenes where he meets the scientist Ramdas, his first meeting with Navya and also when he has to face a few challenges after the threatening call.

Some of the scenes where Navya and Nishanth get intimate also sounds very desperate and the usage of "IT" when the author explains about the longing for a physical relationship by Nishanth everywhere lacks sophistication. The choice of words such as, "He dies on Spot" when Nishanth sees Navya for the first time and "Cancer of Lung" again lacks maturity.

The scene where Nishanth starts to admire the breasts of his patient becomes ugly and this should have been completely avoided as it makes the protagonist a womanizer and it also takes a toll on the personality of the earlier described character of Nishanth. 

Belonging to the medical background, it is easier for the author to come up with jargons but for a reader, it becomes quite difficult to understand. Those things require a clear explanation. 

Describing a character has become slightly tough for the author and it is very evident from the writing style. The description lacks flow and at times where it has been exaggerated quite a bit. Many times when the story just begins to get interesting, the author has quickly given away the secret and this can be a buzzkill.

Editing is very poor and the words are spaced in such a way they sometimes convey a different meaning altogether. For example, 'The Best oncosurgeon' has been typeset as "the best on cosurge on", this really is a major turn of throughout the book as every page has editing errors.

Overall I rate this book 2/5 as there is a lot of groundwork to be done before penning a Sci-Fi genre. 

Book Review - "Turtles All The Way Down" - John Green

Author: John Green

Genre: Fiction

Sometimes, expectations hurt you quite a bit and this happened to me while I read "Turtles All the Way Down" from John Green. I was quite excited to get this book after I had read "Fault in Our Stars" from the same author but this book is a complete disaster according to me though it’s another Bestseller copy.

The story constantly revolves around a girl called Aza and her paranoia about the intestine related disorder, C.Diff. She constantly keeps worrying about how she is helping worms breed in her body by feeding the energy through the food she eats. Her hysterical behavior of cleansing her stomach by popping in hand sanitizer at times got way too obnoxious and the entire read becomes deranged at times.

The good part of the book was the explanation of Tuatura and the Obsessive Compulsion Disorder. The detailed explanation of the disorder and the behavioral changes has been expressed phenomenally and this is unimaginable but somewhere, the plot loses its significance and gets a little too complex with long and endless sentences.

The author has tried to squeeze in too much of information all at once and the story loses interest as there seems to be a loss of connection. The friendship between Aza and Daisy gets muddled up when they start involving in romantic relationships with Davis and Mychal respectively.

The plot which initially seems to be a thriller slowly loses its essence when Aza gets into a relationship with her old acquaintance, Davis Pickett. But ultimately, the novel gets a closure but I never found what happened to the Tuatura later and it was quite unbelievable to know that an animal can also become a legal heir of somebody's billion-dollar property.

"I thought about how we all believed ourselves to be the hero of some personal epic, when in fact we were basically identical organisms colonizing a vast and windowless room that smells of Lysol and lard." - Turtles All The Way Down

Big Magic - Elizabeth Gilbert - Reviewed

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert

Genre:

Non-Fiction

“The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.”  - Big Magic.

This has been one of the best books I have read after a pretty long time. I had seen one of my colleagues carrying this book along with her to the office and I was drawn to the cover page of the book. I was curious and ended up asking her to lend me the book for a week but I guess the Universe had a different plan.  Of course, I ended up ordering a new book for myself because the "IDEA" of borrowing did not work quite well.

That's how my relationship with the IDEA of BIG MAGIC finally started. Elizabeth Gilbert, one of the most celebrated authors knows how to keep her readers interested. I ended up studying the book instead of reading it and the best part of the book was the "Elk Talk" bit. I literally could visualize the entire story as I read through the words. The way the author takes a complete grip on the content by explaining the advantages of creative living and how the world of "IDEAS" can actually exist and work.

She also explains how the creative living can make each one of us happy without asking much of us. The way she explains why creativity is important in our lives and why should we not be scared of creating things is matchless.

Reading this book would certainly elate you and would give you a totally different perspective on the concept of creativity and ideas. The author explains explicitly the collaboration of ideas with us and the occurrence of “BIG MAGIC” in an effortless manner.

I would certainly like to thank my colleague for introducing me to this wonderful book, "Thanks Siji" :)

Book Review - Daughters of Arabia - Jean Sasson

Cover page

Genre: Non-Fiction

Author: Jean Sasson

The book revolves around 'The Princess' from an Arabian family and as she explains the journey of her life with her two beautiful daughters Amani and Maha and the struggles she goes through in raising her kids in the culture that does not convince her. The author pens down everything in detail and a magical way and transports us to the royal lands of Sultans of Saudi. The Protagonist Sultana explaining the mishaps and the unfortunate events that occur in the royal families.

It’s a non-fiction and Sultana depicting her gutsy nature in bringing out some of the darker secrets of the imperial families back in Saudi Arabia.

"A Girl Possesses nothing but a veil and a tomb" - Saudi Arabian Proverb

As you read the book

There are still a lot of illegitimate happenings in those regions and that includes the practice of female genital mutilation and polygamy in the name of Islam and Holy Quran. Every chapter has its own crux and my personal favorite is the Monte Carlo chapter which is filled with extreme emotions and this is one of the chapters that are gruesome, in this chapter the author has tried her greatest possible degree to capture the moments as is. 

When Sultana gets forlorn in defending her maidservant Fatma's family from committing a female circumcision on her grand-daughter, Sultana rushes to her daughter's house but comes back empty-handed. Though having a title of Princess, Sultana ends up coming back to her home defeated because of the ignorance in the name of religion.

The story gets intriguing every word by word but you need to have a lot of endurance to bolster the happenings and events.The author sometimes slows down but at times the story gets completely heated up and as a reader, it triggers the levels of curiosity to greater levels.