Monday, September 22, 2008
October 21st, 2002
Do any of you remember October 21st, 2002?, I was a mere slip of a lad of course, setting up a boardroom for a three day training course I was delivering for a large Manchester based dealer group. At about 08.45 that morning, just after I had neatly lined up name cards, pens, pads and bowls of mint imperials, we had an earthquake. ..Chaos... Mint imperials, pens and name cards everywhere, my training venue was a mess, and I must confess, my trousers came close.
At lunchtime, with all delegates just about to settle back down to the scintillating subject of Conversion Techniques, another tremor, more powerful and longer than that mornings warning shot. Along with my delegates, I was outside the building having a smoke, ( so very un-PC, I know) when gravity seemed to switch off for a while, and the world felt like a ship in the waves, the floor is there one second, and not there the next.
I expect this is how our colleagues in the Financial Services Sector feel right about now. You expect that the floor will be there, and then it isn’t. I know many readers don’t have much sympathy for the FS sector currently, but all of the tumult and upheaval that is currently splashed across the nations media will have a totally profound effect on our service providers in the Motor Industry in the coming months.
We have seen the Northern Rock debacle unravel in recent months, and all of the subsequent finger pointing, but now we have seen one banking leviathan devour another – and Andy Hornby, the HBoS Chief Executive is forced to sign the business, founded 1695, over to his oppo at Lloyds TSB.
Now I don’t know whether you love or loathe our FS providers, but the fact of the matter is that we need them, they fulfil an integral part of the Automotive Industry, they provide wholesale funding, and they can help us close retail and fleet deals that couldn’t be closed without them. They are a tool, a string to your bow, and to lose them would be disastrous to the industry.
The whole Lloyds / HBoS issue is one of confidence, HBoS lost the confidence of key people in the city, and subsequently the share price fell to below £1, and when confidence melts away, the value of that brand goes with it.
Ask yourself, do your customers have confidence in you and your Brand, your products, your services, and most of all you ? Let me tell you that if they don’t, then get it, and get it quickly. Give your customers faith and confidence in your brand, your franchise, your processes, your people and your offering to them, I can pretty much guarantee that those businesses that can deliver consumer confidence will succeed over the coming months, because I will also guarantee that like an earthquake, consumer confidence in the Banking and Financial Services Sector right now will be very flaky.
If you would like Profit Training to help you get the edge and take advantage of the current market conditions, please get in touch, we would be delighted to help.
At lunchtime, with all delegates just about to settle back down to the scintillating subject of Conversion Techniques, another tremor, more powerful and longer than that mornings warning shot. Along with my delegates, I was outside the building having a smoke, ( so very un-PC, I know) when gravity seemed to switch off for a while, and the world felt like a ship in the waves, the floor is there one second, and not there the next.
I expect this is how our colleagues in the Financial Services Sector feel right about now. You expect that the floor will be there, and then it isn’t. I know many readers don’t have much sympathy for the FS sector currently, but all of the tumult and upheaval that is currently splashed across the nations media will have a totally profound effect on our service providers in the Motor Industry in the coming months.
We have seen the Northern Rock debacle unravel in recent months, and all of the subsequent finger pointing, but now we have seen one banking leviathan devour another – and Andy Hornby, the HBoS Chief Executive is forced to sign the business, founded 1695, over to his oppo at Lloyds TSB.
Now I don’t know whether you love or loathe our FS providers, but the fact of the matter is that we need them, they fulfil an integral part of the Automotive Industry, they provide wholesale funding, and they can help us close retail and fleet deals that couldn’t be closed without them. They are a tool, a string to your bow, and to lose them would be disastrous to the industry.
The whole Lloyds / HBoS issue is one of confidence, HBoS lost the confidence of key people in the city, and subsequently the share price fell to below £1, and when confidence melts away, the value of that brand goes with it.
Ask yourself, do your customers have confidence in you and your Brand, your products, your services, and most of all you ? Let me tell you that if they don’t, then get it, and get it quickly. Give your customers faith and confidence in your brand, your franchise, your processes, your people and your offering to them, I can pretty much guarantee that those businesses that can deliver consumer confidence will succeed over the coming months, because I will also guarantee that like an earthquake, consumer confidence in the Banking and Financial Services Sector right now will be very flaky.
If you would like Profit Training to help you get the edge and take advantage of the current market conditions, please get in touch, we would be delighted to help.
