Q1 down, only three to go…

‘April is the cruellest month’ – well, at least T.S. Elliot thought so in The Waste Land. As Q1 of 2009 disappears into our collective rear view mirror, unlike Mr Elliot’s morose opus, I hope you aren’t spending this month burying dead projects, client files and/or business plans.

The first months of this year have seen many of us trying to make sense of a plethora of statistics, what with the RPI (Retail Prices Index) recently heading south to 0% for the first time in 49 years while its cousin, the CPI (Consumer Price Index), unexpectedly heading north to 3.2%. Meaning? We’re buying more baked beans while waiting for deflation to bring LCD screen costs down, if the econ-boffins are to be believed. (Bollocks, in other words.) All of which is cold comfort to the many talented people who are currently looking for work through no fault of their own.

‘It’s enough to make you want to drive your Mercedes over a cliff!’ I remember Dame Edna remarking rather colourfully about the 1987 crash. Well, this time around there’s no Mercedes. It’s been traded for a second-hand Vauxhall to help pay last month’s school fees or mortgage.

The rules of engagement for UK businesses have obviously changed; and not necessarily for the better – at least in the short-term. But before any of us reach for the Prozac, it’s worth remembering, even in our darkest moments, that: (i) the economy hasn’t entirely ground to a halt, it’s merely slowed; and (ii) there’s still business out there to be had. We just have to fight even harder for it.

Keep the faith folks, is all I’m saying. One quarter down, only four to go until better times return.

Hopefully…