I gave a business talk last week to my local SERTOMA club on business conditions for the balance of 2023, and I thought I’d share it with you.

1. There’s not going to be much of a recession (although we’re biased here in Arizona by the good economy), even given another 0.25% rate hike by the Fed.
2. Interest rates are still historically low, but whether funds are available is a good question. I recently bought some shares in Western Alliance Bancorp, partially so I can get access to their thinking, and the stock was historically dirt cheap, because of the problems with Silicon Valley Bancorp. Local banks like WAB still do a lot of lending.
3. Business conditions are pretty good, but not in the metro cities in blue states, because of theft and labor conditions.
4. Now’s the time to tune up your web site and make sure it’s producing the leads you need. Talk to your webmaster and make sure you’re on Google Local Search.
5. Now’s also the time to tune up your sales force and make sure leads don’t fall through the cracks.
6. If you’re doing relationship selling, and we hope you are, make sure your sales reps have contacted all the customers that you haven’t heard from lately.
7. Don’t pull back on your innovations, but check the estimates of share you might get, and make them a little more conservative. Heck, we’re restarting our online business school, www.businesssuccess.school, so we’re putting our money where our mouth is.

So, have all these in place by next week. 🙂