Eduardo Bottger understands that explosive growth or a turn for the worse can happen literally overnight. It’s one of his industry’s challenges, and it’s one of the reasons he is always prepared.
Bottger forecasted the recession, but alPunto Advertising Inc. was at first immune to the economy, posting a record year in 2008 with $45.5 million in billings. The company predicted work and revenue would slip in 2009, so it hired employees on short-term contracts during its growth, leading them to not have to lay off full-time staff when things slowed.
“It’s looking into the crystal ball,” says the founder, principal, president and executive creative director of the Hispanic agency. “But to look into the crystal ball you have to have all the information you can get, all the information you can gather.”
In order to truly be prepared for fluctuations, you must research and predict trends, use that information to devise a plan and share your findings with employees.
Smart Business spoke with Bottger about how to predict and prepare for business fluctuations.
Research the possibilities. We do what we do for our clients — we look at trends, we look at research. The management team is always looking at the different areas of their specialty that might have an impact not only on our business but, most importantly, in our clients’ businesses. When we look at all the trends, and trends is a synonym for future, we get an idea for what can happen.
There’s a lot of research available, published research, and I think anybody who wants to find research in their particular area of expertise will find it virtually at no cost. If they have a good network or if they belong to associations that are pertinent to their industries, they should be able to find it there without having to pay any additional monies.
Apply the information you’ve found. The next step is how it applies to your particular industry and specifically to your company. That is where you need to rely on the top talent on your team. In our case, we bring people from seven different areas. They bring their expertise and their talent and their instinct in trying to figure out what we think could happen, how everything that has happened on a micro level will affect our particular business and our clients’ businesses.
There’s a lot of instinct that goes there, but instinct is based on facts and information we collect and the information that we share internally.
One of the secrets is there’s so much information out there maybe the first step is to figure out what is the information you want to consider and which is the one you don’t. That is by putting together a team of experts that will give the right perspective and will work as a filter of what is relevant to our business and our clients’ business. What is the information that we think is reliable, what is the information that we think is looking ahead, not telling us what happened but what could happen.