Kriss Akabusi's Blog

Some people Make Things Happen

Some people Watch Things Happen

Some people Ask What the Hell Just Happened

Which Category are you?

Robb Scott and Vicky Beale of Aaron Wallis Sales recruitment http://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/ Matt Markwort of Optimise Lead Generations http://www.optimise-uk.com/ and I were feed up of the constant doom and gloom, we were tired of half glass full thinking, the constant media frenzy as typified by Mr Peston www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston the talk of Countries, Banks and Companies up sizing, downsizing, right sizing and capsizing was depressing to say the least and the bars and restaurant around the capital of London down were in the doldrums along with the rest of the country.

While at an ISMM (The Institute of Sales and Marketing Management www.ismm.co.uk in London this December night 2008 we were motivated by the main speaker Matt Crabtree http://www.positivemomentum.com/ and once we collared him to join us we decided to Make things Happen, for ourselves and for our country. MIH2010 was born and the four musketeers left with a spring in the step to be the solution and not part of the problem in GB PLC economic woes.

The biblical instruction “Seek and you will find” was well depicted in the 1989 American fantasy/drama film, Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner were the catch phrase “Build it and they will come was truly inspirational. The gang of four took that advice and were soon joined by Elizabeth Van Geerestein http://www.papillonpartners.com , Gavin Ingham http://www.gaviningham.com , Dave Thomas http://www.spy-games.com and Mark Palmer http://markpalmermarketing.com the place rocked on September 17^th in Whittlebury Hall. People came with purpose, speakers delivered with passion.

The Buddhist concept of Karma and the modern day parlance “What goes around comes around” is a great way of explaining what has happen in part with the collapse of our market economy. A few greedy bankers and a multitude of lazy journalist took eighteen months to convenience Joe Blogs to stop spending and start hoarding. By the Christmas Peak, retail outlets were discounting by 80% reducing their margins to zero just to get rid of stock that the consumer society decided that they maybe did not really need just yet, and the whole system came tumbling down like a stack of cards. I’m as guilty as the next man reducing my net spending by 40% just to save for the rainy day. One conference I spoke at last year the company in question had turned over £270 million with double digit growth and a twelve percent profit margin but had decided that it might be prudent to cut meetings by 50%, cut expenses by the same margin and to allow natural redundancies to take place by not replacing those who were leaving, why? This would save a million quid on their expenditure bill. I pointed out that this otherwise successful company by taking such a miserly attitude would contribute to the malaise of the country and had rewarded hard working team members with less slice of the pie. It would be like a premiership football team who had won the FA Cup cutting wages, and playing with ten men instead of eleven and expecting the players to be motivated to compete at the highest level.

When Adam Smith the Scottish, philosopher/economist 1723-1790 in his seminal tract “the wealth of nation” wrote about the “invisible hand” and “Laissez Faire” economics he knew that in order to gain wealth one had to spend it. That one had to give in order to receive, that literally what “goes around comes around” and that if a community of masters and workers maintained this ideology it thrived whereas if one party usurped the other it unravelled “The quantity of every commodity brought to market naturally adjusts itself to the effectual demand… If at any time it exceeds the effectual demand, some of the component parts of its price must be paid below their natural rate.” It is time now for each and every one of us to be the solution and not the problem, stick the two fingers up to the naysayer and doom mongers, spend instead of hoard, support the system not undermine it  create the wealth of  the nation and Make It Happen 2010.

Adieu