Peter Jones On Surviving The Recession
On the way in to work one morning this week, I was channel-hopping on my car stereo and settled on the Chris Moyles show on Radio One. The organised chaos that usually ensues is always a good laugh for my pre-coffee ears so I thought it would be worth a listen. A couple of music tracks in and Chris introduced his guest for the morning, Peter Jones. Being a big Dragon’s Den fan – I’m a sucker for pantomime – I thought this would be good: some entrepreneurial wisdom to help us all through the day.
At first I was a little worried about the content of the interview when one of Peter Jones’s first comments to Chris Moyles was “it is really hard, isn’t it, out there”, which I thought over-simplified the problem just a tad. But things did get better from there on and I actually think Peter Jones did a pretty good job of explaining some of the issues of the credit crisis for the Radio One audience. Issues like “what does ‘sub-prime’ mean?”, and “are banks lending to small businesses these days?” were dealt with in a very succinct and informative fashion.
Peter Jones’s musings on getting us all out of a recession seemed to be twofold:
First – and reminiscent of Norman Tebbit’s much misused 1981 “on your bike” comment about his father’s efforts to find work in the depression of the 1930s – Peter Jones said that if you are finding it difficult to secure a job, have been made redundant or have just left education, you should “get up, start a business, do something with your lives”. It was actually quite an inspirational speech in which he underpinned the concept that good ideas will be successful, recession or no recession, and therefore you should not hold back on your business dreams just because the economy is in a bad way.
Second was a warning to the country about our attitude towards the recession. I think he was quite right when he said that we are talking ourselves into a recession, and that our negative thoughts are speeding us toward that eventuality. Everyone knows that things are bad, but we have become a nation obsessed with predicting the worse. Positive mental attitude is what’s needed. Some sunshine-in-the-dark-times thinking. Maybe we can talk ourselves out of a recession rather than into one.
Peter Jones quite rightly said that some banks are again starting to lend to businesses that can prove they have good management and an excellent idea. The Government certainly has attempted to free up the credit market with various cash injections to stimulate bank lending. But attaining business funding through the traditional route of bank lending is still far more restrictive than at any time in recent years. As a result, firms that offer venture capital and others that facilitate the matching of entrepreneurs with Angel investors, such as Angels Den, have seen a sharp rise in business. The exciting thing about this is that they have also seen many deals made and many business success stories even in these dark times. If you want to be the next Peter Jones, and to achieve this your venture or business idea needs funding, come to our website at www.angelsden.co.uk to see how we can help you to achieve your business goals.
Image © mcmorgan08
