Forbes magazine came out with a list of 10 people whose businesses are prospering in spite of recession. Experts have judged their success, saying, “Lean staffs, a passion for their products and obsession with quality give them a layer of insulation that bigger outfits don’t have.” These qualities are not unique in a time of crisis, making them stand out and not whine. While it’s true that they offer quality which is always a consumers’ premium, there is some other logic that ties them to the tragic epoch on hand.

It might help they are ‘small-scale entrepreneurs.’ A small-scale business does not need any of the prerequisites (costing money) that are attendant to big supply chains. Advertising, for instance, is close to nil with small-scale entrepreneurial endeavors. These companies basically rely on word-of-mouth promotion.

‘Healthy order backlogs’ is another touted factor in why they seem to weather the recession storm. Understandably, they have order backlogs. They are small, after all. So are their respective markets. Competition in these markets isn’t cutthroat, either.

A ‘vintage’ sports car maker, a tattoo artist, a hiking-boot maker, a bike maker, a plastic surgeon, and a Labrador dog trainer are just some of these supposedly ‘recession-proof entrepreneurs’ on the Forbes list.

These successful entrepreneurs have one thing in common, with or without recession. They offer the biggest customer satisfaction premium: value for money (basically because they do not have all those ancillary expenses which balloon budgets that only get passed on as added cost to the product, such as advertising, promotional junket expenses, and exorbitant multimillion executive bonuses)

Value for money wins all the time, in whatever economic climate. It’s not as if the markets of these ‘recession-proof entrepreneurs’ have less money because of the economic downturn, it’s just that they have less patience to spend on lemons that are priced out of the market.

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Via The Economic Times