This year is most likely a year many of you wish was far behind us, but I think the challenges will be with us for a while. In a word what sums up the culmination of events leading to the turmoil of 2008 is greed.

It was inevitable that the escalation of the price of real estate, gas and goods and services could not be sustained. Common sense should have told us that. This was a forced situation that did not fit in with the natural laws of supply and demand. Banks, financial institutions and speculators created a formula that, for awhile, made a lot of people rich and made a lot of others think they were. Now we have come back to the natural law described by Darwin as the survival of the fittest.

Any time the industry experiences a slow down, claims increase- and honoring them decreases. We've had instances in the last two months alone where the flooring material was visibly defective- a bad mend and high loops- and the mill denied the claims.

The residential flooring business is down. Commercial business is still holding, but it too is slowing. The bright spots are education and health care, and the more viable of those two is health care.

Schools rely on tax dollars to pay for building and renovation, and when the economy slows fewer goods and services are purchased that can be taxed, squeezing funding for the educational sector of the market.

Health care never takes a break. People will continue to get sick and get old, so that market should hold fairly well. It's important to have top-notch facilities that are up to date and marketable, and flooring is a big part of marketing health care facilities.

Not all business is bad. I speak to dealers daily and many are still holding steady, are only down a bit or have actually improved over last year. If the media would stop telling us the sky is falling and the banks would loosen up credit instead of hording cash, the stress would ease a bit, and people would feel more comfortable about buying. When wealthy people, who can still afford anything they want, pull in the reigns because of anxiety or they feel guilty about spending if no one else is, then it is no longer an economic factor, it's psychological. Add to that the number of jobs being lost because business has slowed and people just don't feel great.

Floor covering is a postponeable purchase; buying food and paying the mortgage is not. Until this situation changes- and inevitably it will- business will be off. When things re-bound I think it will be slow, measured and somewhat cautiously approached- we have to learn from the colossal mistakes we made. Greed will have to be curbed.

On the other hand, as many have said, "In the face of adversity lies opportunity." It strengthens us, allows the fittest to get stronger and survive, and it teaches us how to adapt. No doubt, as in the economic downturns past, we'll hear stories about great success.

What you have to do now is educate yourself, provide the best customer service you ever have, sell the best products so you won't have complaints, be the market leader, clean the joint up and look for every opportunity you can for business.

I say this all the time, "If you don't ask, you don't get." Now is the time to teach yourself to be better than you've ever been, no matter how long you've been in business, how old you are or how successful you have been. When things get better, and they will, you'll want to be ahead of the charging pack. Position yourself in every way to do that.