One week into BEDA and I’m finding blogging every day to be easier than I thought it would be. It certainly helps when I’m sent articles like this one about my namesake Andrew McDonald the Shoemaker from Sydney.
That’s a photo of Andrew above, taken from the interview in today’s small business section of the Age. I already have to compete with Andrew McDonald the Victorian cricketer now I have to compete with Andrew McDonald the Shoemaker getting all this media attention too.
To try to counteract all the attention Shoe-Andrew is getting I have taken the Q&A he did with the Age, removed his answers and inserted my own answers:
The Age: How is bespoke retailing faring right at the moment? Are you finding customers are being more economical?
Me: I would say that bespoke retailing is most likely doing less business than usual at the moment. I say this because I have certainly not purchased any bespoke or custom-made items in the past year or so. Excluding that suit I got in Vietnam.
What changes have you had to make to the way you run your business to accommodate the current economic climate?
I wouldn’t exactly call being a writer a business. But if I did run a business I would probably cut back on all marketing, fire most of my staff and spend my weekends just generally panicking.
How has the downturn impacted on your business plans for the next 12 months?
It means that I can no longer afford to pay my business planner Joseph to plan my business. Although I think he was working on a five-year plan not a 12-month plan.
What things would you never compromise on and what things are ok to scale back on?
Writers should try scaling back on compound verbs – they take up too much space and as money gets tighter, books are going to have fewer pages.
Is luxury retailing facing the need to re-invent itself? Oroton markets itself as ‘affordable luxury’. Can this work for others?
Affordable luxury is when you break into a rich person’s backyard and swim in their pool. Or when you attend a wedding with the inside of your jacket lined with plastic bags to put caviar into. I’m not sure that Oroton counts.
If you had a crystal ball, what would you picture for the next 12 months?
I don’t think this question makes grammatical sense. I mean, are you asking what do I picture happening in the forthcoming 12 months or what would I see if I stared at a crystal ball for 12 months in a row? The answer to that last question is…crystal ball. I would probably just see a whole lot of crystal ball.
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