What Recession?

[tuck]

Word is there is a recession going on, but you could've fooled me. I'm kickin' chicken down here in Gainesville, Ga., and I hope the rest of you ShopBotters are as well. I primarily make custom signs, but I'll do anything to make a buck and not have to punch someone else's clock.

Signs for subdivisions has been my bread and butter since I bought a used Bot 6-7 years ago and that's kinda dried up lately with the housing market, but sometimes Muhammad has to go to the mountain. I'm still making signs but lately I've been cutting jobs for displays, exhibits, custom mailboxes, a local small cabinet shop, and anything else that pays bills and keeps the Bot running and the wolf from the door. There's plenty of work if you do good work at a fair price. I don't advertise. Word of mouth is all the advertisement I've ever needed.

Sometimes I think the media dictates the economy. That being said, I've learned that I have to dictate my OWN economy, be it lush or lean times. You have to make up your mind that you're gonna make it, no matter what, and never forget where you came from!

Bot on!

[terryd]

A definition I learned in the early eighties the last major R up here in the great white north. A recession is when your neighbour or friend looses his job, a depression is when you loose yours. I guess it always depends on where your viewing the picture from. Since we don't have jobs to loose then we are immune, right?

[tuck]

The way I see it, Terry, is that as long as I am in business for myself (and my customers), then I don't have a job to lose.

Wait a minute. That doesn't make sense! :-D

[wendell]

Where are you located? I teach school in Forsyth and live in Sugar Hill. It sounds like busiess is good. I've had Bots for about the same time as you have and use them mainly for a teaching tool. It's a great way to demo how computers talk to machines.

[Brady Watson]

Quote: "I've learned that I have to dictate my OWN economy..."

You hit the nail on the head. Turn off the TV. Throw out the newspaper. Neither have enough good things to say to justify their existences...If you own your own business, you need to get your mind right. Belief has more to do with success than anything else. Period. You have to visualize, eat, sleep & dream how you want your business to go. The people who make the big bucks know this, and it is documented and spelled out for you in Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich - Everything most of us have been taught about business is completely WRONG!

Don't believe the doom & gloom propoganda. No matter what the 'experts' say about the current state of affairs, it is none of your business. I believe that if you have a CNC & you are good at what you do, you will ALWAYS have work, no matter what label you put on the economy. The more diversified you are in the services you provide to customers, the more 'hearty' you are when times get tight. Don't forget, people still bought Cadillacs, Dusenburgs and Tiffany lamps & cuff links during the Great Depression...which adds further credence to the idea that there is ALWAYS room for the best.

-B

[tuck]

Wendell, I'm in Gainesville Ga., Hall county.

Another thing I do is in-ground installs (smaller signs) for small sign companies that don't like to get their hands dirty. Many weeks I'll make an extra $400 -$700 doing what really takes little time and effort if you have the right weapons, which I do. (9hp tow-behind hydraulic auger!) I made $750.00 in just one afternoon last year planting church signs. I use to have to work a solid week for that kind of money when I punched someones clock.

The work is out there. Sometimes you just gotta beat the bushes. (And get your hands dirty!)

[gerard]

Well said Brady, I cant speak for anyone else, but in my time lurking these forums, you have truely been an inspiration to me, between your outlook on business, to your knowledge of CNC, to your willingness to share and help where you can.

During the time I worked for myself from 1980 to 1999. I never realized that we had recessions, as long as you are able and willing to deliver what your asked to, and a customer base that believes in you, you will always make money.