Business getting better?

[garthu]

I havn't really had much opportunity to talk to sales people recently but whats the general opinion at the moment? News is bad all the time, more bail outs and all seems doom and gloom. Sometimes i believe that we allow the news, negativity to control our own outcome but we have noticed a marked improvement in property movement over the last couple of weeks. Better commitment to pen and paper as well. Is everyone feeling this?

[Martinco]

I have had a very good month in Feb compared to Oct, Nov, Dec and Jan.

I trust the trend will continue.

[3x-a-d3-u5]

Year on year January was a better month than February, bit still there is some growth

[IanF]

I havn't really had much opportunity to talk to sales people recently but whats the general opinion at the moment? News is bad all the time, more bail outs and all seems doom and gloom. Sometimes i believe that we allow the news, negativity to control our own outcome but we have noticed a marked improvement in property movement over the last couple of weeks. Better commitment to pen and paper as well. Is everyone feeling this?

Garth
It is a mixed package for us had a good run with the litho side for 2 weeks, now that has dried up. On the digital we are having a good run. But there is no consistency.
On another note I met up with an old school mate first time since school and he works for a big property fund. So I floated the idea past him of reducing rentals. His reply with their portfolio they have at least 10 people looking for shops so no reductions. They will look at reducing space to reduce rentals though. But with a big landlord they can afford for a % of shops to be empty. So my thoughts are stay away from the big landlords as they can afford to be harragat.

[Dave A]

Property movement seems a little better than the last quarter of last year, but not by much. And that's way off the numbers of the previous year. So anything we do related to property sales improved slightly, but off a very low base.

In pest control and hygiene I had a record month for Feb. No complaints there, although converting sales to timeous payments is still proving tiresome.

[garthu]

Pretty good to hear all round though. Hopefully it can all keep a little steam. When it's a mixture of industry showing some improvement, it gives confidence!

[3x-a-d3-u5]

, although converting sales to timeous payments is still proving tiresome.

Is that anything different....

[Pap_sak]

Had a my best week, day and month in Feb, so pretty happy here. General opion is thats it's a bit quite all over.

[Yvonne]

Our company had two good months in January and Feb!

Yvonne

[Chatmaster]

I had more or less the same experience.

January and February was great but ironically March is already a record breaker month, so I suspect this year will be outstanding. To be honest though I haven't felt a real pinch on my business since last year with the power failures when I nearly went .

[3x-a-d3-u5]

I have had a number of clients 'downsizing' accounts and one or two cancel this and last year same time (Jan/Feb), but nothing particularly groundbreaking. Perhaps 2009 will be good

[Dave A]

Well, amidst all this good cheer, I'll point out that the only reason we've had good times of late is because of a strategic shift. If I'd carried on totally commited just to our group's core focus of two years ago, I'd be dead in the water.

Some market segments have just withered and died.

Absolutely delighted to hear we've got so many with good news, though.