Small businesses must open their minds to new ideas and business models if they are going to keep their “head above [the] water” in the current economic climate.
This was the advice is coming from former Opposition Leader Mia Mottley, as she delivered the feature address at the first members meeting of the Barbados Small Business Association (SBA), at Pelican Village, yesterday evening.
Speaking to business owners on the topic of Sustaining Small and Medium Size Enterprises in 2011 and Beyond, Mottley stressed that, “the job is to keep your head above the water.”
“Some may be able to swim, some may be able to do back strokes, some may be able to do breast strokes, and some may just be able to dog paddle. . . .but whatever the mechanism is, the task is to keep your head above the water. Your future depends on it as individual enterprises; our future depends on it as a country.”
Mottley said Barbados was going through “a wake-up call and Barbadians can chose to enjoy a camaraderie associated with these kinds of speeches … but as Mahatma Ghandi said ‘you are the change’ and your future depends on it ….
“Until we recognise that it is in within us that that first step must come, we are going to continue having these discussions for a while”.
