Members’ Predictions and Strategies

May 06 2009 by Geoff Graham in Articles, Guildmember Predictions, Member news
2 Comments

In October of 2008, we polled our members, requesting their forecast into what’s going to happen with their businesses and what will happen in the market in general. We also solicited comments about their strategies and thoughts on emerging and waning trends. Shortly after that survey, I published a brief summary of all of the feedback (the Q4 08 summary is available here).

In mid-March of 2009, we repeated the survey, and I was pleased with the results for two primary reasons: tons of participation and commentary, and much more optimism than the Q4 08 survey. Click here to download the complete report.

While there’s lots more commentary about strategy and trends in the download, below is a single chart that succinctly describes the change in sentiment.

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  1. Joe Sasso on May 12th, 2009 at 8:40 am

    I\’m not sure I understand. Is the bar chart saying business is up over the forcasted market percentage? I hardly agree if that\’s the intent here?

  2. Geoff Graham on May 12th, 2009 at 9:01 am

    Joe,
    We asked people to predict whether or not business would improve in the coming six months (through Q2 and Q3 of 2009).

    In comparison to feedback received in Q4 2008, significantly more respondents now forecast improvement in their business performance and their wider market. Back in October, far more people foresaw that business would worsen through the remainder of 2008 and the beginning of 2009.

    It turns out that their dismal October predictions were accurate. Let’s hope these recent predictions will be as reliable.