THIS week a local website company posted a blog asking the question ‘Is Salisbury in a recession?’.

Their answer to this was about evolution and being responsive to change; but I totally disagree.

I used to partake in a lot of face-to-face networking, only to hear people complaining there was no business in Salisbury and times were tough. But Salisbury is not in a recession; in fact the whole country is on the up.

Unfortunately Salisbury is suffering from something worse.

It is so clear why people feel Salisbury is in a recession and it’s not because people are not marketing themselves properly or because businesses are not evolving.

Businesses have devalued their products and services so much by offering stuff for free or for a token fee that customers don’t want to pay a fair price for a good job.

Business coaches give the first session for free in the hope it will hook people in.

(It doesn’t, people will hop around business coaches, taking advantage of every free hour or two they can get.) There are cliques in Salisbury (the inner circle) that don’t let other businesses have the opportunity to work with them as they are not part of the ‘in crowd’, and customers are so used to getting everything for free that they won’t pay for an expert, they just go for the cheapest offer out there!

(Remember you get what you pay for).

I have watched Salisbury, as well as other towns and cities in the country, do exactly what Salisbury has been doing, and it sucks. It takes people years and years to learn and become experts in their field, and if businesses stopped giving their time and products away for free and started paying, the feeling of recession would dissipate, and Salisbury would thrive.

Good photography costs money, a decent haircut from a professional should cost more than £15, and good marketing advice doesn’t come cheap. If this city doesn’t start putting their hands in their pockets I can see more charity shops arriving, restaurants going out of business, poor marketing advice being given and more and more businesses going under.

So next time you want to have a contra with someone (exchange a service for a service) think about the bills you have.

Children are not fed and mortgages are not paid if you do not pay people for their services.

In the same vein if people don’t pay you a fair price, don’t do it. It is better to have no money and market yourself to paying clients, than spend your time giving it for free and not having any time to get good fee paying customers.