According to wikipedia Confidence is described as a state of being certain either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective.
It also goes on to say that Confidence can be a self-fulfilling prophecy as those without it may fail or not try because they lack it and those with it may succeed because they have it rather than because of an innate ability.
This Confidence thing seems to be a pretty important ingredient to success – where can I get it?
Everyone we deal with is now starting to “accept” that the economy is finally improving and consumer/business Confidence is one of the reasons quoted as being responsible for the change.
For example, nationally, car sales are up 28 per cent. The light commercial vehicle market, which is a good sign of activity in the SME sector, saw an increase in sales of 41 per cent in February with sales of Heavy Goods Vehicles, a barometer of activity in the wider Economy, seeing a 68 per cent increase.
Alan Nolan, SIMI Director General: “The Motor Industry is often the first to be affected when there’s a downturn and one of the first to come back when the economy improves. Dealers are undoubtedly seeing a lot more Confidence among consumers, many of whom have been putting off making large purchases over the last few years.”
Incredibly February 2014 saw the formation of 37 new companies in the Motor Industry.
Where did this magical Confidence come from all of a sudden?
- Is it all due to logical factors that the economists can explain in detail?
- Is it down to clever governmental policy that has strategically steered us into a much better place?
- Is it because there have been lots of tax breaks, which have lead to increases in disposable income?
- Are our fabulous banks now getting back to lending again?
Hmmm..
Is it because collectively we changed our attitudes because we all got totally burnt out and fed up with the suffocating negativity everywhere and realised we had to start looking up instead of down and make things happen for ourselves?
Once we changed out attitudes, performance followed and before we knew it many of us witnessed positive results and started believing that things were changing for the better. We were Confident once again.
While there were lots of real elements that led to the crash of our economy our collapse of Confidence meant the hole became much deeper than it ever should have been.
For exactly the same reason we will now see a huge improvement – not for any logical reasons but because we are now Confident.
The next time we hit a bump in the road we need to remember that protecting Confidence is the number one priority.
#Positivity
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin
Tags: Alan Nolan, Cork, Design, Dublin, Fuzion PR, Greg Canty, ireland, SIMI
Greg Canty Fuzion Blog 
March 10, 2014 at 12:29 pm |
Thanks Greg, super positive as always. What a great message to start the week!
March 10, 2014 at 8:02 pm |
thanks Denis – have a good one !
March 11, 2014 at 2:35 pm |
Confidence comes from knowing what you are doing.
I have to take issue with using new car sales as a barometer of the performance of the economy as there was a similar surge in demand at the start of last year, but the overall total sales for the year were around 6% lower than 2012. It seems that the number 13 was still unlucky for the SIMI. I have noticed a lot of cars with registration numbers over 40000 recently, so I suspect that there is a healthy import market for used cars from the UK. Ultimately, all new car sales result in money leaving the economy to the country of manufacture.
March 11, 2014 at 5:33 pm |
Good point Mark – we are seeing a lift with all of our clients and the point I was making with the car sales was that they were referring to the magic ingredient “Confidence” as being a factor – what is that anyway ?