Small and mid-sized businesses are the first to know when a recession is about to hit, and they usually see it coming about six months ahead of the goliaths and titans of industry.

Consultant and author Verne Harnich, considered one of the top 10 minds in small business by Fortune Small Business magazine, says that for most firms, 2001 was a year of pure survival.

"They said, we've got to do what we can do just to survive," Harnich said during a telephone interview from Jamaica, where he was attending a session of the Rebel Chapter of Young Professionals Organization.

"Those who were still standing at the end of 2001 then spent most of 2002 just getting slammed: cutbacks on travel, cutbacks on education, and the weak companies went out of business in droves."

Harnich, who speaks Feb. 14 at Xavier University's Cintas Center from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., thinks the worst may be behind us.

In fact, except for jitters over Iraq, the nation might already be on a wide path to recovery.

At the Jamaica session, Harnich heard a presentation by Dr. James Smith, senior fellow and director of the Center for Business Forecasting at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

"He says we are already seeing signs of a recovery," Harnich said.

"Every quarter saw year over year growth. Right now, assuming an economic return in 2003, companies have to get serious about strategy. No longer can companies just make stuff and sell it.

"There needs to be a serious understanding throughout all levels of a company about how to make your firm or product matter to your customers and how to be different from your competitors."

Harnich says he will tell executives at the morning seminar, produced in conjunction with the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by Joseph-Beth Booksellers, that they need to immediately figure out how to break away from the competitive pack and do it as a first step to creating a strategic plan.

Firms should also develop what Harnich calls the "X-factor."

The perfect "X-factor" is an underlying approach that will give a company a competitive advantage that should deliver a competitive edge that is five to 30 times more powerful than anything a competitor can offer.

One obvious way to formulate a strategy is to listen and consider customer wants and needs. He cautions that customers are just one consideration and cannot be the only consideration. "You can't listen to every `want' from a customer because the fact is that customers can `want' your firm right into bankruptcy," he said.

Early birds

Accountemps, an international staffing agency with offices in Cleveland, sampled opinions from 1,400 chief financial officers about the best time for job applicants to seek interviews.

More than two-thirds said a morning meeting is best, between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Only three percent said 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. was the optimum time.

The carryout from the study is an old and obvious saw: Early birds get the worm.

E-mail at jeckberg@enquirer.com