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About The Author
A former Royal Air Force Officer, Charley Downey gained a Post-Graduate Diploma in Leadership before moving into the commercial sector. She has successfully formed and sold two businesses, and worked as an interim manager and business development consultant. She is now the General Manager of York-based electronics manufacturer Tele-Products Ltd, and its two business divisions; First Stop Safety and Crucible Technologies. Charley lives with her husband in Leeds, West Yorkshire.
On her reasons for writing the book, Charley said: “The media is telling anyone who will listen that the proverbial sky is falling in and that the end of the world is nigh, and yet my company’s net profits grew 15% in the past 12 months. We’ve done this through a series of quite simple steps designed to reduce our risks in the present climate and target our marketing initiatives more effectively.
I assisted with some research last autumn, into how small and medium sized businesses were coping with the current economic situation, and I was surprised to find that the approach we’d taken, which I thought was basic common sense, seemed to be considered by everyone working on the research paper as pretty unusual. I must have turned into a bit of a pub bore on the subject, as a fair few of my friends and colleagues convinced me to stop going on about it and write it down!
Over the past few months, I’ve spent my spare time trying to collate and communicate what we’ve done and how we’ve done it in a simple, easy to follow format. I started studying our economic history, and various texts on the subject, and I came to the conclusion that all the information available fell into 1 of 2 camps – the tabloid-style articles with alarmist headlines and not two facts to rub together, and books by many learned economists, all the size of a telephone book, some of which I had to read with a dictionary in the other hand, and none of which seemed to have a sense of humour!
Either way, there didn’t seem to be an awful lot of help out there for practically-minded people seeking to do the best they could for their businesses, and their staff in the present situation.
I’ve tried to distil the pertinent points of our recent economic history, and put it into a usable form, along with a plan of action to minimise the effect of our current economic climate. I’ve put all the suggestions into a 12 step plan. Most people have heard of a 12-step plan, which is used to help people suffering from addictions to recover. This is a 12-step plan to economic recovery.
The most important part for me was to create something that was practical and easy to read. It’s not ‘one size fits all’, and not everything there will work with every industry, but I believe that there’s something for everyone to use as a start point. I’d like to think that any business can find a new idea there that could help improve their bottom line. I’ve tried to keep what could be seen as a dry subject as entertaining as possible, so you may even get a laugh along the way! If it has a claim to fame of any description, I’m quite convinced it’s the only book on economics out there with the word wonderbra in it – but you’ll have to read it to find out why!
I hope that readers will be able to take something away from this that significantly improves their bottom line and their sustainability. If just one company implements the ideas, and stays out of administration as a result, saving just 2 or 3 jobs, then writing it will have been time well spent. I wish you the very best of success for a steady, sustainable and successful future.”