The media reports are mixed and confusing. They say that the recession is officially over, yet jobless rates are still high. In the small business community, emotions have run high all year as many have struggled to simply stay afloat.
Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I’ve been looking for signs of a turn-around. Here are a few things I’ve noticed just in the past month:
- Homes for sale in my neighborhood finally have Sold signs!
- I stopped by our local steak house on Tuesday night–a night that is typically quiet there–and business was hopping!
- My phone has been ringing off the hook. Proposals that I sent out months ago are suddenly coming through.
- Our local coffee shop reports an increase in foot traffic (which is evident in the long lines!).
What are you seeing out there? Do you feel like the economy is starting to make a recovery? The results are likely different depending on where you live. We’ve been hit hard in California and I suspect our housing market will take a long time to recover here. But I’m interested in hearing about your real-world experiences. Are you spending more? Are you customers spending more? Are you ready to march into 2010 with high hopes for a much better year?
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November 13th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
I don’t deal with the general public as much as I am involved with business owners, capital investors, VC’s, angles. I beleive that we have not seen the bottom of the markets as of today. As we all know, our goverment has been shoring the economy up with very short term solutions and we are facing a very long term problem, as of matter of fact, the short term solutions that are being used to shore up the economy is being looked at as prolonging the inevitable. In my opinion, the faster we allow the markets to settle, the faster we can start rebuilding so no I don’t feel that the economy is moving north. I apologize for being so vague in the subject matter, but I did not know how much detail you wanted.