Green shoots have many sources

It is official: the recession is over. And I am not relying on the figures released by the Office for National Statistics showing a pathetic 0.1% growth revised to a dizzy Dom Perignon cork-popping 0.3%. No, I enjoy an infinitely better source than that rumbling juggernaut of number generation.

For the last 38 years, I have had my hair cut by the same bloke who runs his own hairdresser’s in an ex-mining village outside Doncaster. He has built a busy business serving a wide range of small companies, slightly larger organisations and professional people throughout South Yorkshire.

From motor dealers to market traders, sofa sellers to solicitors and surgeons, he snips for them all. And enjoys with this gamut of society that special hairdresser’s nod-and-wink client relationship unique to his profession. The message Derek is clearly receiving is compelling in its repetition.

You might wish to treat this unusual research source cynically and consider that what we are seeing are not real shoots of recovery, but sprigs of artificial greenery perhaps strategically planted by politicians, to create a feel-less-bad-factor that might see them through to the end of the general election campaign.

But those of us in the South of Yorkshire Haircut Focus Group are a bit too sharp not to have seen through that. I might add that this centre-of-the-country, no-axe-to-grind, coiffeur’s bellwether has served me handsomely in the past, often being the tipping factor in some finely balanced business decisions that I actually got right. OC & C, Harvard, Bain - who needs them when there are coins to toss, tea leaves to read and my barber’s customer base to consult?

So, if a wide chunk of our public do reckon that things are moving upwards, then clearly those of us in retail might do well to encourage that view and start to talk the job up a bit. There is no better consumer medicine than a hearty swig of optimism and a positive peek at the brighter side of life, and no finer tonic for retailers than the heady whiff of customer confidence.

So, could this be the moment to sign up on one or more of those glorious buildings standing vacant on our retail parks or high streets, take a legal bung, a bit of rent-free and push onwards and upwards? Or to strengthen our teams with some of the talent ‘let go’ as a result of the now-past recession?

The looming tussle for mastery at the polls could strain the good humour of a sole Euro Lottery winner. But Brown, Cameron or hung, the show must go on - and what a performance it could be for the bold and enterprising optimist.

So, come on amigos, put a smile on your face “wider than a mile” to quote Andy Williams’s Moon River, and as we say up North in Adwick le Street, ‘carpe diem’.

And what about tailoring the action to the smile with a bit of uber-friendly, Far Eastern-style service, quicker product innovation and prices geared to take the customer’s breath away. As that gregarious Russian meerkat keeps telling us, ‘it’s simples’.

If a stuffed puppet recognises that, what are you waiting for?

Lord Kirkham is chairman of DFS