Don't update that CV just yet

With all the doom and gloom in the air, a number of otherwise joy filled offices have become about as much fun as a Peter Andre concert - you know there was a reason for showing up, but now you're there you just can't put your finger on it.

One group of people feeling the pinch are recruitment companies, mainly because there are fewer and fewer jobs to go around. Any time someone starts looking around, the so called experts tell them to keep their head down, weather the storm, and just wait for things to improve.

Hold on a second. Wait for things to improve and then leave? It seems to me that if you find yourself working within a company that can survive this downturn, that you'd be sitting on a goldmine when things turn around.

Now is not the time to be getting that CV updated, and it's not just about keeping your head down in order to not rock the boat. This is the time to be proving just what a superstar you can be. You need to prove just how invaluable you are to your employer. You see I spent eight years in recruitment before I got into promotional merchandise and if there's one thing I know (that would be rather limiting wouldn't it? Eight years to only learn one thing) is that the best candidates don't need to go looking for the best jobs - the best jobs will invariably find them.

So how to prove one's self in this bucket of crap we call our economy? Your bosses need you to be an innovator - to look at every aspect of your business and find ways to cut costs and improve profits. It's not just down to the sales people and the accountants to make those things work - everyone within every organisation should be thinking about their company's future. Some of the most innovative ideas of all time came from people working in departments other than sales. Companies like Swan Vesta and Colgate are worth millions today because of ideas presented by their cleaning staff.

So let's see if we can come up with your next million pound idea. Trust me - if I had one, I wouldn't be sat here right now. So let's start with something simple. When is the last time you thought about your company's relationship with its customers? I'm not talking about who spends the most money with you or who you offer the best corporate hospitality. I'm talking about all of your customers. How do they feel about you? Are there areas of your service that they would want to see changed, improved or perhaps removed altogether?

Most importantly, when was the last time you asked them?

Merchandise Mania make a point of sending out an electronic survey card with every order that we fulfil. We ask our customers to rank us from 1 to 5 on various aspects of their order. We cover everything from the quality of the advice given through to the speed of the delivery and everything in between.

Those customers that give us 5 out of 5 across the board make us happy - we know that they will be using us again and again. Those that give us less than 5 make us ecstatic - they provide us with a valuable opportunity to improve our service, to outshine the competition and truly become number 1 in our industry.

These survey cards cost us nothing at all, but the information we get back is priceless. So that's my tip for the week - go and make yourself indispensable to your employers by making sure that your company is indispensable to your customers.