It’s Bad – but it’s not 2008 bad.
Yes, it feels eerily like 2008. And yes, in a few short weeks, many of the stock market gains of the past three years have evaporated. But it is my opinion that as bad as it seems, we are in better overall shape than we were in 2008 – the credit markets are functioning and companies are in better financial shape than they were.
More about this later – but my point here is that this is my opinion. DO YOU HAVE AN OPINION? And if so, and you are client-facing, have you communicated this opinion to your clients? At times like this, clients want to hear from you.
Over the past few weeks, one of my clients has sent out three special notes to clients. One of these notes simply including a synopsis of the market commentary of a very well know market guru. Each time I received a communication from him, I felt a connection – that he was on top of his game. He is also calling clients to give the personal touch, but even if you do that today, that client still will want to know next week that you are still thinking about them.
Communicate with your clients – or they will not be your clients for long!
Back to the opinion portion of this post. Am I scared? Absolutely. My biggest fear is that politicians here and abroad (most notably Europe) are unprepared to deal with any crisis of this size. This is more a crisis of confidence than a meltdown of the system itself. And that is a good thing. We need our leaders to emerge with real ideas about cutting our deficits and kick-starting the economy. Because if we don’t, even though this is not 2008 again, things are not likely to improve for a long time.
