Waiting for the Election to Decide? Or Just Feels That Way?
This is my fourth general election whilst being in business, and every time, I hear the same thing. Businesses holding off, waiting to see how things land before committing to anything. I've said as much myself in the past. But this time round I want to ask a slightly different question. Does that slowdown actually happen, or does it just feel like it does?
It's worth separating the two. A widely shared feeling isn't the same as a widely shared reality.
The feeling is real, even if the pattern isn't
Every election, the same mood often settles over conversations with clients. A sense that everyone else is pausing, so pausing feels sensible. Nobody wants to be the one spending while everyone else is holding back.
But when I think back over the three previous elections, the businesses that actually stopped moving were the exception, not the rule. Most kept trading, kept marketing, kept getting photographed. The perception of a wider freeze was louder than the freeze itself.
Why the perception sticks anyway
Part of it is what gets talked about. A handful of businesses genuinely do pause, and those conversations are memorable, so they get repeated and generalised. Part of it is that caution is contagious in conversation even when it isn't contagious in behaviour. You hear two people mention holding off, and it starts to feel like everyone is.
Media coverage adds to it too. Election season brings a steady stream of uncertainty language, interest rates, policy shifts, business confidence surveys, and it's easy to absorb that as "things are on hold" when what it usually means is "some things might change eventually."
What this means for your own decision
If you're weighing up whether to hold off on photography or marketing until after 7 November, when the dust has settled, it's worth asking honestly whether you're responding to something specific to your business, or to a general sense that everyone else must be waiting too. Those are different situations and deserve different decisions.
If there's a genuine, specific reason tied to your industry or your customers, that's worth taking seriously. If it's more a feeling that this is what businesses do around elections, it might be worth testing that assumption before you act on it.
