There are countless ways to keep your finger on the pulse of your local economy. And not all of them involve pie charts, bar graphs, and columns of numbers. Remodeler Michael McCutcheon simply pays attention to what's going on around him.
“It's watching where the money's flowing and then trying to get into the stream,” McCutcheon says. For instance, in recent years, the money in the Bay area seems to have moved from San Francisco to the suburbs. As a result, MCM Construction has begun focusing on doing more work out there.
Buying habits can tell you a lot about the local economy, too. “When our employees are spending money, going on vacations to Mexico and that sort of thing, that's an indication” that business will be good, McCutcheon says. Even what his employees are eating for lunch can tell him if he can expect prosperous times in the month ahead. “Are they going out to eat, or are they bringing their lunch from home?”