In Search of the Recession: One Small Business Owners Quest for Relaxation and Recession.

This summer I went on a quest of sorts.  In truth, the initial idea was to take a cross-country summer vacation with my family.  However, being the ever vigilant multi-tasker, my trip soon evolved into a multi-pronged mission that looked something like this: Spend quality time with the family, seek out expansion opportunities for my business and assess the state of the economy in America first-hand in the summer of 2009.

Living and running a business in the San Francisco Bay Area, it seems we are often subject to the mixed blessing of rising faster and higher during the good times, and falling further and harder during the bad.  This certainly seemed to apply to our real-estate market among other things, but it was not consistent with my experience doing business locally.  Sure, there are certain segments of our economy that are struggling, and some serious pain for families suffering layoffs.  However, among the entrepreneurs and small business owners I have encountered, most have resolved themselves that business must go on and many are finding creative ways to conduct theirs.  I wanted to see if this was the case as we worked our way across the country.

Our chosen method of transportation was an older model, semi-reliable, borrowed RV.  Taking a northern route to avoid the summer heat, we left our home in Walnut Creek, CA and headed North to Portland, OR.  We visited my wife’s brother and his family there.  He had worked for years in the mortgage industry of all things and had, in-fact, recently been laid off when his company closed his division.  We were curious to see how this development had impacted their lifestyle.  

By the time we rolled into Portland, he had already found a new job and started work less than 2 weeks after being laid off and before his severance had even expired.  They took us to a local farmers market on a sunny Saturday afternoon.  It was packed with vendors selling a variety of farm-fresh wares and the majority of booths had customers lined up three deep waving their dollars in the air for service.  Business was brisk.

Heading East from Portland, we ventured through Idaho and could not help but notice the plethora of other RV’s on the road, most significantly more modern and well equipped than our humble bus.  Chatting with some RV owners on the road, I learned that many of these vehicles sell for well in excess of $100,000 and qualify for a mortgage and a tax deduction as a second home!  Interestingly, the RV crowd did not strike me as highly compensated top executives either.  These were folks of relatively average means that had left their primary homes behind and took on a second mortgage to hit the road for the summer.  They certainly didn’t seem to be suffering too badly from this recession.

As we passed through Idaho Falls in route to Yellowstone National Park, our semi-reliable RV suffered a bout of unreliability forcing us to seek out service on the road.  Not wanting to fall behind on our itinerary, we called around looking for same-day service.  The first mechanic shop I called specialized in RV’s and told me they were so busy they couldn’t get us in for three days!  Finally, I found a shop that could take us and they did a great job getting us back on the road later that same day.  But it sure didn’t seem like these small mechanics shops were suffering.

We arrived at Yellowstone the next day relieved we had made a reservation as all the RV sites were completely booked.  Perhaps it was RV owners that had found a way to steer clear of recessionary forces.  Leaving the RV parked, we boarded an all-day bus tour of Yellowstone with a knowledgeable tour guide who shared much insight and history into the park.  As part of the tour, and completely unsolicited, he shared that June of 2009 was the busiest month in the history of Yellowstone Park.  These were visitors from all walks of life and all areas of the country and the world, not just RV owners.  I guess the recession was not hurting vacationers too badly.

But what about Main Street USA, those hard working local folks who surely were suffering the most?  Our next stop was the small Western town of Cody, Wyoming where we discovered a beautiful new restaurant facility hosting a cowboy cookout and western music festival.  This hall was huge featuring a stage and rows of tables to accommodate some 500 hungry cowboys of which I was one.  The show was great and during our meal, the emcee asked the crowd who was from out of town and who was local.  Nearly half the crowd on hand identified themselves as locals out for a night on the town.  It seemed like half the population of the town was in this place.  Later we were greeted by the owner who shared that he had just recently opening this gleaming new facility and that business was good.  Hmmmmmm.

Coming down from the mountains, we enjoyed stops in South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.  Everywhere we went where business was being done (there’s whole lot of miles of nothing in between), business was brisk and crowds were large.  So here I sit in Chicago where I just learned that demand is so strong for some theater shows that they have added performances on Monday night, which historically is the dark night for theater goers.

While my evidence is anecdotal and our trip not quite complete, it brings to mind the famous quote from FDR at his inauguration, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  Surely my experience has been that this recession is playing out primarily in the media and the minds of business executives and consumers whose own fear actually exacerbates what is otherwise a fairly mild and certainly transient situation.  Whether you’ve been personally impacted by this recession or are just looking for ways to jump-start your business, start by putting on your best positive attitude, get out there with your marketing and begin your own quest to get your share of consumer’s dollars because they’re spending them.