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Some Businesses Will Flourish in a Tougher Economy

Defying Gravity

Some of America’s iconic companies took flight in gloomy times.

From: Inc. Magazine, May 2008 | By: Ryan McCarthy

  • 1873

  • A stock market crash, the collapse of a major bank, and a credit crisis lead to the Panic of 1873 and a deep six-year recession.
  • Coors Seeing that the country desperately needs a drink, a 26-year-old Prussian immigrant named Adolph Coors opens what he calls the Golden Brewery near Denver. The area is growing fast as rail lines open the West, buoying the start-up. And Coors is able to persevere despite fierce competition — with $20,000 (in 1873 dollars) on hand, he is extremely well capitalized.

  • 1891

  • Wrigley With just $32 to his name, a 29-year-old Chicago entrepreneur named William Wrigley Jr. starts a business to manufacture soap. When it sells poorly, he tries baking powder. As a gimmick, he includes free chewing gum in every package. Customers seem more taken with the gum than with the goods it is meant to promote, so Wrigley drops the other products and starts developing new brands, including Juicy Fruit and Wrigley’s Spearmint.
  • For the entire article to to Inc.com

Tough times can be…well…tough for a lot of businesses. And then there are the businesses who seem to flourish during rough economic times. There are companies where the owners have the temerity to actuality launch during the hard times cycles, and they end up not only surviving but thriving.

Since Corra conducts pre-employment background checks and business research we pay a lot of attention to the economy. Don’t we all. But for us, we are in the unique position of talking to all sorts of people in all sorts of businesses around the country and around the globe. We have reached one conclusion. There is no general state of the economy. For some businesses it is rough going. For others, their timing couldn’t be better.

Some companies are exporting overseas to businesses taking advantage of the weak dollar. These domestic companies, thanks to that weak dollar, are flourishing, since they have become more competitive on the global market. Others offer services and product on a budget to people in need to reduce their own costs. Or, in some cases, the services are entertainment and distraction in tight times.

I know of people who in the toughest times, the Great Depression, as it was known, made a great deal of money. Meanwhile, there were folks who in the salad years of the great booming American Decades, struggled throughout. There were the guys who were smart enough to wait for the decline in the housing market and buy people out for pennies on the dollar. Sound familiar? Others, they went belly up.

So take heart and take stock of your business. It is a time not to give up but retrench and show the grit and determination that will advance you to the next level. Smarts won’t hurt any. And to have good, qualified employees will take you far in this new world we live in.

Run background checks on your employees and do corporate research on your potential business partners. Stick it out, innovate, and you, too, will prevail.

Check them out before you hire.

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.