Best Industries in Recession - Inc.com suggestions

Those clever guys at Inc.com pushed out a great little thought provoking piece titled
The Best Industries for Starting a Business Right Now.

So I thought it would be useful to list them and offer a few comments:

#1 Candy - industry grew 3.7% - think niche and value, be remarkable

#2 iPhone Apps - 30,000 apps to date - keep the day job, 95% of these apps will not make money for the developer

#3 Health-Care Technology - $19Bn pledged in the stimulus bill for health-information tracking systems - Great part of the software space, but be clear on your business result and the customer you are trying to impress

#4 Beer, wine wholesale - export of American whiskey grew 8% last year - stay close to the value argument, still very price sensitive

#5 Software as a Service - software as a sector expected to grow at around 5% but SaaS potentially at much higher levels - the on demand, subscription model is very compelling for buyers but vendors need to be crystal clear on their business model

#6 Home Health Care - demographics on your side -the key is choosing a niche you can dominate

#7 Yoga Products & Services - staggering to think Americans spent $5.7Bn on yoga stuff in 2008 - think about what has not been done in this industry

#8 Technical & Trade Schools - plenty of potential candidates - think about repeat business and revenue model carefully

#9 Fast- Casual Dining - Panera Bread grew 16% last year - see my twitter ref to food trucks

#10 Green Construction -green building space taking off - perhaps a good time to train your staff on the issues affecting this sector to get ahead of the curve

#11 Niche Consulting - saving money, pr damage control mentioned - it will take much longer than you think to build a brand - allow 9 months for your first client

#12 Education Technology - US still emerging market - great opportunities for hardware and software but again you will need to be remarkable and niche to stand out

#13 Temp Staffing Firms - in theory yes - but in practice, we need to be much closer to recovery to see this industry pick up - long term the trend of senior temp execs will be big in the US like Europe

#14 Government Services - Huge growth stats being thrown off this sector - invest in quality RFP and documentation preparers

#15 Accounting Services - cash flow management driving growth - great opportunity for regional practices to steal market share. The public are very cynical of the big brands

#16 Repair Services - if it's worth repairing why buy a new one -quality of service will separate the winners from the losers

#17 Self Improvement - historically seen strong growth - pricing of these products and services will be key, need to show remarkable value

#18 Energy - fastest growing sector of the Inc 500 -watch the divergence between investor appetite and entrepreneurial passion, bootstrap for as long as you can

Good luck!

Why Positioning Drives Growth

Firstly no one can argue with the proposition that cash stability for any business is essential. Cash losses need to be stopped. However it is vital that management quickly define their unique space. Stuck in the middle of the envelope with no clear definition of who you are is risky not safe. Carbonite are growing very fast because they have defined a clear identity in prospects heads. Automatic efficient back up of your hard drives - because your life is on your computer. The web, blogs, all social networks cry out for tags to describe yourself. The whole search engine industry is saying -- please define yourself very carefully because we can then send lots of pre-qualified prospects your way.

EBay, Pacific Sunwear, Abercrombie, American Eagle, News Corp, Sara Lee all announced repositioning actions last week. Defining your unique market allows you to consider strategies to dominate it. Play by your rules. Why play by a competitor's set of rules? Sales and marketing campaigns, speeches, white papers are all so much easier to execute when you know who you are! The acquisition of new talent and the motivation of existing talent is certainly easier with a clear compelling story. Product road maps have a driving vision. Best of all, sales conversations have greater traction.

The most compelling sales conversations that create action in a prospects head (yes even in this economy) are those that address one clear thing -- improved performance of your prospect's business. Think of it as your client's client. How will your product allow your client to perform better for their client. To even begin to think with that level of clarity requires management to define who they are. Of course when sales start to get traction please reinforce again and again who you are.

The next five years are a great opportunity for companies to stake out their unique market, claim their space and work tirelessly to open huge gaps on the competition and emerge out of this recession, a world class, high growth, remarkable business.