Too often innovation gets confused with invention, when in fact they are not the same. Unfortunately, we are bombarded with articles and warnings that in order to survive as entrepreneurs we must innovate or be left behind. Ok, I’m not sure that we would be left behind, but innovating or improving how we do things, is never a bad idea.

The goal for any innovation should not be for the sake of innovation alone but should either enhance the customer experience or increase our efficiency. If you can do both that’s even better.

Microsoft Office 365

pilot in open cockpit plane

A simple example where, in my opinion, neither of these goals are achieved is Microsoft Office. Over the past few years, I have watched as this software grouping has morphed into a bloated feature laden product.. What was once a simple dropdown menu style that allowed access to the most commonly used functions have disappeared under renamed menus loaded with icons that would have an archeologist scratching their head trying to decipher these hieroglyphics.

Excel Icons
Egyptian-Hieroglyphs

I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of the Office 365 install base are not power users, therefore these improvements or product evolutions, fail my innovation test. It neither improves the user experience nor increases efficiency for most of us as we waste so much time looking for a simple formatting function.

I’m sure that some power users need these enhancements that the product engineers dream up but for most of us it’s overkill.

A recent experience with an Excel spreadsheet or is it now called a workbook or a worksheet? Regardless of what it’s now called, I needed to unlock a protected spreadsheet. Because I don’t use Excel everyday, I needed to hunt down that function. Once upon a time, you could simply click on one of the dropdown menus and click on that function. Well no more.

After I don’t know how long of hunting and pecking through the drop menus and trying to decipher the various icons, I typed “unprotect” in the Excel search bar to no avail. Finally, I turned to Google for help and finally found the answer. Seriously, nothing should be that hard.

A simple solution might be to just offer the everyday user an option for a “Classic” menu that would offer the user the most commonly used functions within the complete Office 365 lineup. Now that would be an innovation!

Alternatives such as Open Office, Libre Office and Google’s Workspace offer a simpler user interface. Aside from being free, their popularity might be driven partly by their ease of use.

Small Business

Innovation for most small businesses does not have to be earth shattering. In SBM #36 Innovation, I mention that what we need to understand is that most successful innovation comes from either borrowing ideas from other industries or reconfiguring your existing products or services to tackle new markets or customers. Put this way, innovation becomes less daunting and can be implemented  incrementally over time and does not require wholesale retraining of your staff and customers. Therefore, they are considered natural or logical enhancements.

Merriam Webster provides the following definitions which may serve to clarify the difference between innovation and invention:

Invention

“a device, contrivance, or process originated after study and experiment,” usually something which has not previously been in existence.

Innovation

for its part, can refer to something new or to a change made to an existing product, idea, or field.                                                                                   

They go on to provide the following example:
One might say that the first telephone was an invention, the first cellular telephone either an invention or an innovation, and the first smartphone an innovation.

The wristwatch

Another simple and great innovation is the wristwatch. Prior to the 20th century, wristwatches were only worn by wealthier women as a fashion accessory, whereas men had pocket watches. It took a World War for the wristwatch to become a mainstay accessory for men.

As the story goes, coordinating troop movements, bombardments and attacks required officers and soldiers to be always aware of the time. The process of fumbling for a pocket watch proved cumbersome due to the necessity of having to always check. That frustration was compounded during the winter months when wearing gloves.

Someone gave this some thought. They simply stole or should I say borrowed the wristwatch idea and adopted it for men. That way soldiers wouldn’t have to reach for their watch at all, as they were wearing it. A simple twist of their arm and they could see the time.

WWI soldier with Watch
https://www.businessinsider.com/watches-after-wwi-the-male-accessory-2016-5

My experience

When I founded the Marketing Resource Group or MRG, I brought this essence of innovation to the consumer packaged goods and healthcare industries. Prior to MRG, I owned The Sales Support Company which was a contract retail merchandising company. In other words an outsourced sales force. I had 150 people working coast-coast performing various sales functions in our client’s smaller retail customers.

Because our merchandisers needed to travel from store to store to perform their duties, wages and travel costs represented a significant portion of our costs. Raising prices was difficult as it would dilute the cost/benefit argument we had put forth. So, after eight years sustainable profits were elusive, so I sold the company.

My innovation

One of the reasons that made my decision to sell The Sales Support Company easy, was that I knew the industry still needed to service these accounts but needed cost efficient solution, which I had been quietly testing for over a year.

Once clear of my obligations with my previous company, I launched MRG to provide our clients with an alternative solution to service these accounts.

So instead of having an individual physically visit a store, we began telemarketing these accounts as a means to communicate and solicit orders. As an aside, we provided other services that previously required a sales representative to perform, but now were done remotely.

I knew of only one company that was doing anything remotely similar and that was Kimberley-Clark, the makers of brands like Huggies and Kleenex.

The big difference was that they were selling their own products, whereas we would be a sales as a service model, representing any number of companies and brands, albeit never at the same time.

Aside from Kimberley-Clark this hadn’t been attempted before and therefore it took a bit of effort to get buy-in from our clients.

Eventually, we convinced enough clients of the merits and gained the necessary momentum to make it a viable business that I owned for 17 years until I sold it.

This innovation had numerous benefits and few downsides for our customers. Considering that we handled what I referred to as their orphaned accounts, those retail establishment that due to annual purchases or geographic location, received no sales coverage from their existing salesforces.

Foremost, our reach was unlimited. If they had a phone, we could contact them, regardless of where they were located, even in the Artic.

Innovation through adaptation

So let’s be honest. I didn’t invent anything here. I simply took an existing service, telemarketing, and applied it to an industry that wasn’t using it. There is a saying “good artist borrow ideas great artist steal ideas.

Is that not the purpose of innovation? How many so called innovations, add no value to the end user and only add confusion.

First and foremost, innovation needs to improve the experience. But change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea. The best way to determine the value of your innovation is to ask your customers and not just your power users.

Also consider that instead of more features, maybe consider fewer and see if that improves the user experience.

You may also enjoy SBM #107 Beware of the whale

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Greg Weatherdon has been there, done that. As an entrepreneur, he learned not only how to get a business to the point of running smoothly, but also how to reduce the number of hours he worked, delegate more responsibility to his employees, and take longer vacations while his business chugged along like a well-oiled machine. And now he is providing the secret to success.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

Inflation is much like rust. Left unchecked it can quietly eat away at your buying power and can turn a profitable business into one that struggles and a struggling business into non-existence.

For many of us, you pretty much had to be a Boomer living in an industrialized world to fully appreciate the impact that inflation had during the 80’s. During that period mortgage rates skyrocketed to over 21% and unemployment exceeded 12% in North America.

As bad as that was, there were countries that faced 100% annual inflation back then. To put things in perspective, that meant that the price of goods doubled in a year.

Inflation is like rust

The point of all this is not to provide an economics lesson, because I’d be the wrong person for that. No, this is intended is reinforce the need to be vigilant in managing your costs and pricing.

Regardless of your industry, you are probably facing cost increases in materials and wages. The latter because of the tight labour market, thanks in part to government social programs.

With all the things we must oversee as business owners, being a little more vigilant with all our purchases can become burdensome. However, with inflation starting to ramp up to serious levels, it’s more important than ever review your costs and adjust your pricing to protect your margins.

Too often I find small business owners struggle with increasing their prices because they are afraid of losing customers. Their internal dialogue usually centers around “I can’t charge them that much, that’s expensive, they’ll never pay that much!”

How is it that they won’t pay that much? Everybody is paying higher prices for just about everything they buy now. So, why should you be a martyr? Unfortunately, inflation is a perpetual motion machine that never stops.

The destructive power of inflation

What so many entrepreneurs fail to realize in a high inflation era, is that you need to keep your prices in step with the increases in your costs, otherwise it ends up costing you money and potentially your business.

Inflation can destroy your income statement in short order. When you look at the bottom line of many small businesses, there is not a lot left over after a year of hard work. The typical small business has a Net Income is way below 10% with many running in the 2-4% range. So, on a $1 million business that means your left with $20-40,000 or $10-20,000 on $500,000 and only $6-12,000 on a $300,000 business. Not much of reward for all the hard work.

Now layer on inflation at 4-7% that has recently been reported by various governments over the past few months and you will start to see the potential for margin destruction. But only if you don’t adjust your costs accordingly.

Business is not a charity

Using the previous examples, a 4% increase in inflation can wipe out the profit of most small businesses. Whereas a 7% increase you automatically go negative into a loss.

Look, nobody likes price increases, but it is a reality of our time. For the past 10+ years most of us have enjoyed a low predictable inflation rate below 2%. Even then I have encouraged small business owners to take annual price increases. Because 2% compounded annually equates to over 6.1% over a 3 year period.

Business is not a charity. You are here to make money. The more you make, the more security you can bring to your firm and your employees. The more money you make, the more you can pay your staff and yourself.

Some options

Being worried if your customers can afford the new price is noble but not realistic. There’s no point of losing money just to avoid increasing your prices. Yes, you can always offer a one time discount to your better customers as a way to ease them into the new pricing. But I stress one-time.

I also know that there always seems to be someone willing to do the job cheaper and to that I say let them. Every industry has someone who offers low pricing but it’s my experience that most don’t last long.

Alternatively, you can do what many consumer goods companies are doing, reduce the size of the product to maintain a price. Offering your customers a “lite” version of your existing product or services may be all you need to do.

Minor tweaks such as a decrease in reporting, a reduced delivery frequency or even quicker payment terms are just some of the examples. These small adjustments can be used to maintain a given price point.

Another thing to always keep in mind is if those customers are only shopping on price, you must ask yourself whether you want them as customers in the first place. Often, they are not loyal and will change suppliers for a nickel.

It has been my experience that profit margins are never high enough. So, increasing your prices to ensure inflation doesn’t destroy your company, is just smart business.

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Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Greg Weatherdon has been there, done that. As an entrepreneur, he learned not only how to get a business to the point of running smoothly, but also how to reduce the number of hours he worked, delegate more responsibility to his employees, and take longer vacations while his business chugged along like a well-oiled machine. And now he is providing the secret to success.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

An often published piece of advice to aspiring and to lesser extent existing entrepreneurs is to follow your passion. By doing so, riches or success will surely be yours. But, as with most of these sound bites, this is rarely the case.

Let’s be honest. There’s lots of things that people have a passion for that could never support their dream lifestyle. Unless of course their dream is to just grind out a meager living.

There are plenty of examples of bankrupt restauranteurs who have a passion for cooking but couldn’t run a restaurant. What about the numerous clothing stores that couldn’t make it even though the owner’s passion was fashion?

Be passionate

Plenty of people have a passion for gardening, knitting, pottery, or music, but few would ever be able to or even consider creating anything more than a side hustle that adds a few dollars in their pockets. Of course, there are always the exceptions to this, but they are by far in the minority.

Be Passionate

So, just because you have a passion for something doesn’t mean you can make a business out of it. But then what would happen to all those “Follow your passion” sound bites and their perpetrators?

So instead of “Follow your passion”, what we should be promoting is “Be passionate about what you do!” To some this may be just semantics, but it’s far more than that. It’s about believing that what you do provides a better solution for your customers and not just wishful thinking.

Another way to look at it is that being passionate more closely resembles enthusiasm whereas having a passion is more emotional.

Merriam-Webster defines enthusiasm as having a strong feeling of active interest in something that you like or enjoy. The operative words being “active interest”. Emotions on the other hand, is defined as a strong feeling such as love, anger, joy, hate or fear.

Being passionate is also about continually trying to improve what you do. It’s about immersing yourself in the industry and grasping its nuances. It’s about becoming a student of your industry and the needs of its customers. In other words, to strive to be an expert.

What are you good at?

Another reason being passionate wins out over passion, is because being passionate usually means your good at something. You’ve found a niche that allows you to excel and therefore you just naturally gravitate towards the area where learning and subject matter information is easily consumed.

At the end of the day, most of us would never achieve any level of success if we just followed our passion. And having talked with hundreds of successful entrepreneurs it was interesting that most didn’t follow their passion.

As a matter of fact, I don’t recall anyone of them telling me they followed their passion. No, most just saw an opportunity that aligned with their skill set and went for it. But they were passionate about what they were doing. Being “passionate” about what you do, is far better advice than “follow your passion” in my opinion.

You may also enjoy SBM #64 Defining Moments

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Greg Weatherdon has been there, done that. As an entrepreneur, he learned not only how to get a business to the point of running smoothly, but also how to reduce the number of hours he worked, delegate more responsibility to his employees, and take longer vacations while his business chugged along like a well-oiled machine. And now he is providing the secret to success.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

A year ago, had you asked small business owners what 5 things could put them out of business?, I would have bet a pandemic would not have been on their top 10 let alone their top 50 things. But a lot has changed in just over a year. According to the CFIB (Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses), it is estimated that 1 in 6 small businesses won’t survive because of Covid-19. The UK is also predicting hundreds of thousands of failures with the US expecting that number to exceed 1 million according to McKinsey.

Assuming the 1 in 6 estimate to be true, that means that approximately 83% of small businesses will survive. Most certainly won’t flourish and it’ll take a long time to recover, but they will survive. Unfortunately, with the ongoing lockdowns, just surviving is incredibly stressful, to say nothing about how exhausting it can be.

What 3 things could put you out of business?

5 areas that require every owners attention

Managing the work-from-home environment is not easy for most small business owners. For many, current technology has made it possible to continue, but only after a number of implementation headaches and costs. The learning curve has been steep. Because for many, technology is just something they’ve never understood.

What we need to understand, is that most small businesses are run in an impromptu or spontaneous manner. The owners have been so busy trying grow their businesses prior to the pandemic, that the majority lacked formal processes. Most just spent their days acting, or more accurately, reacting to whatever the day had instore for them. They are more like fire fighters directing their staff on a moment to moment basis depending what fire was burning the most brightly.

To be sure this pandemic has forced a few owners to get better organized in how they structure their working days, but for many it has become quite the challenge in keeping everyone focused, productive and motivated. In episode #93 Pivot, I discussed the whole concept of pivoting, which is far more difficult than people are led to believe, but so is changing the way a company operates.

So this brings me to my question – What 3 things would put you out of business? Well if you are surviving, you can scratch off pandemic. Sadly, because so many entrepreneurs are so focused in the moment, they don’t realize there are a whole host of issues that can kill their
businesses in a heart beat. The following is a primer list of 5 pretty common areas that require every owners attention, in order to safeguard their business’s future.

 

 

 

 

“Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise, will sooner or later have to find time for illness.”

Edward Stanley, former Prime Minister of the UK

#1 Your health

Unfortunately, most of us don’t even consider what would happen to their life’s work if they were suddenly struck with an injury or worse a life threatening illness. What would happen to the business if you were laid up? Would it survive? If not, what would you do for income? How would you handle the debt? How would it affect your family? This is serious stuff and requires your attention. Contrary to what we think, we are not invincible.

The following are few of solutions that you can minimize the impact of a health problem.

First off, you should investigate disability insurance. Yes, it can be expensive and yes, it usually pays out less than you’re currently earning. But something is better than nothing.

Secondly, many health related issues are self inflicted by our lifestyle. Making time for some form of exercise should be mandatory for every owner. It can range from taking a daily walk to a full on cross-fit workout at the gym. Something is better than nothing. There’s a wonderful saying that kind of drives the point home and it is from Edward Stanley, former Prime Minister of the UK that says:

“Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise, will sooner or later have to find time for illness.”

An additional item that should be mandatory in every small business and that is delegate. By delegating absolutely everything you can to your existing staff, this will certainly relieve some of the pressure. That way, there’s a good chance that the business will survive, while you are laid up. Unfortunately, this is one of the hardest things to get entrepreneurs to do. (See Small Business Minute #18 Delegating is easier than you think)

#2 Key staff quits.

Having your key staff member quit can really ruin a perfectly good day and for some people it can take their business down.

People leave companies for a lot of reasons and sometimes there is nothing you can have do to prevent it. From career changes, to better opportunities to relocations, sometimes it’s just out of your hands. But in many cases it’s not. One of the top reasons employees leave is the lack of recognition and this is something you can control. An occasional pat on the back or some other form appreciation goes a long way. It can be as simple as a thank you for their efforts.

However, if a key employee leaves, what’s your plan? If you’re like most you don’t have one and chances are you don’t have a deep bench of trained people ready to assume that position.

Therefore one of the best things you can do is to cross train individuals. The secondary person doesn’t have to be as well versed as the key person, but they should have been given enough exposure that they could perform the job being vacated even though they may be less efficient.

Additionally, creating in depth documented processes for all positions, allows other personnel to perform those functions until such time as you can find a replacement. This will go a long way to ensure that your company will survive. (see SBM #34 Processes- Shampoo, Rinse and Repeat)

#3 Business interruption

Covid-19 aside, there are lots of things that can cause business interruptions. A flood, a fire, even vandalism can shut your business down for weeks, if not months. A closed business can’t generate cashflow, yet bills still need to be paid.

It is estimated that over 80% of small businesses have no form of business interruption insurance that would pay out a set dollar amount in the event of a catastrophe. This is different than typical commercial/business insurance, whereby the physical damage to your business is repaired. Business Interruption on the other hand can cover Gross Earnings, Profits, Extra Expenses. Certainly worth considering.

#4 Competition

What would happen if a new competitor came into your market, how would you deal with it? Being so focused on the here and now, is a great way to get caught off guard. As I’ve stated before, too many entrepreneurs are so busy just handling the daily priorities, they never have time to lift their heads up to see what going.

Inevitably, they are not even aware of that a competitor has set up shop until they start stealing your customers. By the time they do realize what’s happening that trickle of desertions turns into a flood and is hard to reverse.

One of the best ways to avoid getting sideswiped is to stay in touch with all your customers on a regular basis. Too often the only time business owners talk with their customers is when they call in an order. The thought is, “they know where we are if they need us and I don’t want to bother them.”

What 3 things could put you out of business?

 

Staying in regular contact with customers signals that they are important to your business and can also provide you with competitive intelligence. Most customer don’t change on a whim unless you’ve treated them poorly. So, by staying in touch the fact that a competitor is circling is often shared, thereby giving you time to react. (See SBM #76 Pick up the phone)

#5 Bad debt

This one item alone has contributed to the demise of many small businesses. Aside from not being diligent in collecting receivables, having one customer represent more than 15% of your business can be potential fatal if they close their doors or refuse to pay.

When you consider that many small businesses have net incomes of less than 10%, taking a hit from a major customer can be devastating. For example if a client reneges on a $20,000 invoice and you only net 10%, you’ll need to generate $200,000 in additional revenue just to recover that loss.

When you think about it, most small business are not flush with spare cash, missing out a major payment means you can’t cover payroll, rent or suppliers.

If you do find yourself with a client that represents more than 15%, you have two choices. First grow your business to get them below that threshold or alternatively collect early and often. Don’t forget you can set the rules, so don’t be shy about protecting your company. (See SBM #20 Cash Flow, the Breath of Life).

These are just 5 areas that should get you thinking, but every business has it’s Achilles heel. Spending some time thinking about “What 3 things would put you out of business?” certainly deserves your attention. Then pick the #1 item on your list and make a plan.

Let me know your thought sand ideas in the comment section.

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Greg Weatherdon has been there, done that. As an entrepreneur, he learned not only how to get a business to the point of running smoothly, but also how to reduce the number of hours he worked, delegate more responsibility to his employees, and take longer vacations while his business chugged along like a well-oiled machine. And now he is providing the secret to success.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

You Got This-For some time now I’ve have taken issue with the advice given small business owners on social media platforms under the guise of motivation and advice. Sadly, much of this advice being spewed forth by many of these so called experts is, in my opinion, nothing more than hype to grow their popularity.

But in order to balance my opinion and for research purposes, I have spent over 20 hours of listening to the audio version of the books of some of these more popular gurus and to be honest, my opinion hasn’t changed. Listening to how we need to crush it or 10x our activity, because if we don’t, we’ll never achieve our goals, is a little much.

We all need motivation

Now granted, we all need motivation at times and Covid-19 has certainly increased the need. The ongoing pressure and changes has certainly amped up the challenges and anxiety of running a business. This increased strain can be draining and after a while can leave us feeling a little lost, worn out or just fed up.

Covid-19 aside, many of us entrepreneurs have been there over the years. Most of the time it’s nothing more than a speed bump after a prolonged period of grinding it out. You see, successful entrepreneurs are for the most part pretty positive and optimistic individuals. We have to be, considering what it takes to survive, let alone thrive. That’s why resilience is such a key characteristic of those that are successful.

But even with our higher dose of resilience coupled with a higher than average positivity and optimistic outlook, sometimes it’s just not enough, the tank is empty and were done. It’s what I like to call a “Poor Me Day”! It’s a day where we feel sorry for ourselves and wonder what the heck we got into and is it worth it? It doesn’t matter how long you been in business, Poor Me Days can happen to anyone.

The thing is, successful entrepreneurs don’t stay down long, hence the name Poor Me Day, not days. Now on the bright side, a Poor Me Day can be almost like a mental reboot, where it clears your mental cache that has accumulated bits of negative experiences over a period of time. And much like your PC, this cache needs to be cleared every once in a while. So having a Poor Me Day is ok, because once cleared, we can get back to doing what we need to do.

A witty meme doesn’t cut it when you advice

Crush it! 10X your businessAs I mentioned earlier, I do understand the need for motivation and sometimes it is the tonic we need to jolt us back to reality. But reading a pithy meme on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin, unfortunately barely qualifies as motivation.

Motivation is supposed to help us to reset our compass and get our head screwed on straight again. Reading a witty meme or a quote that is misattributed to some personality really doesn’t quite cut it.

Digging into a book or listening to an audiobook has usually done it for me. It gets me thinking. My preference is for the audiobook, especially when read by the author allows me to get a truer sense of their message and their personalities. As a bonus, I can listen to them just about anywhere.

However, what I find disturbing by the two top personalities who’s audiobooks I have just listened to, was the messaging and the tone in which it was delivered.

Let’s start with the messaging. The last thing you want when you’re down is someone telling you that you’re not working hard enough. Telling you that you’ve got to up your game and do a lot more, otherwise you’ll never make it and you’ll be nothing more than average. Or if your not prepared to give it your all, sacrifice everything and put in longer hours in order to dominate, you’ll never achieve the success you want. Really? You call that motivational? I call it bull. But unfortunately that’s the underlying theme of these books.

As for the tone, I found them to be a little too “in your face”! It’s been my experience that what most people need when they’re down, is a calming voice or message instead of someone screaming at you telling you that you’re inadequate and you’re not putting in the effort.

Nothing more than sound bites

Listening to these audiobooks let’s you hear the sheer arrogance of these authors that may not be conveyed when reading the text. I will say, if you can get by all the chest beating that you have to endure, there are a couple of nuggets of good advice, but unfortunately, there’s far more hollow advice that it makes me wonder how they’ve become best sellers.

Much of their advice really is nothing more than sound bites and lack any sound executional details. Although, I’m pretty sure I’m not their target market, it does make me wonder who actually drinks their Kool-Aid? Considering, that there’s just so many better motivational or educational resources out there that offer much better advice.

Does it help to move your business forward?

The good news for most is that many of these resources are free if you have a library card. Although they vary in selection, many libraries have digital libraries that you can download e-books or audiobooks that run the gambit from sales, marketing, social media and so on from a variety of authors.

The only minor downside for some may be that you have to do a deep dive on a subject by reading or listening for a few hours. But let me tell you, no one book will have all the answers, but many will tell you how instead of just saying you should.

So the next time you come across one of these social media posts, take a second to assess it’s true value. How does it help you move your business forward or are the authors just looking to increase their followers and likes? The choice is yours.

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Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Greg Weatherdon has been there, done that. As an entrepreneur, he learned not only how to get a business to the point of running smoothly, but also how to reduce the number of hours he worked, delegate more responsibility to his employees, and take longer vacations while his business chugged along like a well-oiled machine. And now he is providing the secret to success.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

Pivot! Just pivot! That’s what your being told if you’re having challenges running your SME. It’s another one of those words that actually had value once upon a time. Now, it’s so abused that’s it’s nothing more than a throwaway statement by individuals who want to sound like they’re offering intelligent advice, but really aren’t. Realistically, most businesses can’t pivot.

If we’re to be honest, most individuals have a heck of a time coming up with one idea that they can get excited enough about to take the plunge. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. It’s just an idea that they’re prepared to risk their time, energy and resources on to make happen. Even then the failure rate exceeds 50% in the first 3 years and upwards of 85% in 5 years.

So my point is pivot to what? It’s so hard to have one idea let alone coming up with a second one, especially when under duress. I say duress because you wouldn’t even be considering pivoting if everything is running along fine.

No, most often a pivot or rethink is a result of a failed idea, a competitive threat or 100 year storm such as Covid-19. So I say duress because in most cases your business is heading to the ground with the power on and you’re desperate. And when things get desperate, we need a fix and in a hurry. That usually means doing something, anything to generate revenue and stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, being stressed out is not necessarily the best time to make decisions.

The news is full of stories showcasing various companies that have reinvented themselves during Covid-19. But on closer inspection of the stories, I don’t think they’d qualify as pivots as much as a survival strategy.

Pivot
Imagine Jen Theodore-Unsplash

It’s about survival

For example, how many clothing manufacturers converted their sewing rooms from producing apparel, to manufacturing medical masks? I’m pretty sure they’re not going to continue once the storm has passed. It’s a safe bet that most will return to fashion as soon as they can. This is not a pivot, it’s about survival.

The same can be said about distillers and micro brewers who started producing hand sanitizer. This is not a long term strategy. It’s about generating some short term cash flow by utilizing existing facilities and processes. Which at it’s core is distilling alcohol. It’s nothing more than a finger in the dyke. Once demand is satisfied, then what?

“Chances are their pivot is only a few degrees off of their original idea”

Alternatively, some businesses have got nowhere to turn. Take the hospitality industry for instance. They can’t just convert their hotels rooms into alternative use. To be sure restaurants can offer takeout or delivery, but that’s not a pivot. It’s just an extension or alternative to what they are already doing and sadly won’t cover their costs. Again, it’s a just matter of generating some cashflow and of survival.

Retail is another example. Making your offering available online because of a massive drop in walk-in traffic, certainly sounds easy. But it’s a lot more involved than most imagine. Such as setting up your website, getting and managing your inventory online and establishing your payment gateway. None of it is easy and it costs money. Money that most small businesses don’t have.

Let’s not forget all the time and energy required to promote and get visible once you are setup online. That of course assumes you have the necessary skills to begin with. Granted, you can try to learn these new skills, but that takes time. In the meanwhile, you still have rent and utilities to pay.

Yes, there are companies that have managed to pivot and have found success. That just tells me that their original idea probably may not have been as sustainable as they first thought. However, these companies appear to be sufficiently versed in their industry that they’ve managed to leverage their insights and skills to offer an alternative solution. Chances are their pivot is only a few degrees off of their original idea and not a wholesale change.

My Pivot

After 8 years of running my first company, The Sales Support Company, I realized that I was working way too hard and felt like I was treading water. Even though revenues were continually growing at a nice rate, it never translated into any significant profit.

The company provided retail sales services representing some of the world’s largest packaged goods companies.  I had 150 employees working coast to coast at a time before the internet and cell phones. Because of that, communicating with regional supervisors always took place after hours, so the days were long. It finally got to the point where I was just tired of trying to make it work. I was putting in endless hours, getting no closer to my goals and not making any money.

I knew the industry still required our type of service. So, I set out to come up with alternative method to service these stores. Two key criteria were, that it had to be profitable and give me a better quality of life. So, my pivot was to take what we were doing “live and in person” and attempt to do it via telemarketing, which really hadn’t been done before.

In order to find out if this idea would fly, I created Marketing Resource Group and tested the concept over the next 18 months. This happened all the while still running my other company.

Since it was a new concept for the industry, it did require a lot of convincing clients to test it. Fortunately, one by one clients began to support the concept as we were able to deliver the promised results.

More importantly though, is that this pivot was actually fulfilling my first priority of being profitable. My second criteria of having a better quality of life would be up to me, but profits would go a long way to making that happen.

Once I could see the momentum growing for our service, I sold The Sales Support Company. Well actually, it was more like I gave it away, but that’s a story for another time.

My pivot worked so well, I kept The Marketing Resource Group for 17 years before selling it. At which point we were making over 300,000 calls a year in Canada and the US.

Advantages

The point of that story is that I got to test the concept while I still had my first company. Although I was extremely well versed in retail sales and service, I knew nothing about telemarketing.

So the test phase allowed me to learn, trial, and refine the concept on my schedule. Unlike typical telemarketing organization that is script driven, our service had to be adapted to creating long term relationships. That’s why having the luxury of testing and refining made this pivot possible. Doing it overnight would not have had the same results and most likely would have failed.

A couple of advantages that I had that increased my odds at pulling off a successful pivot were:

  1. I knew the industry and
  2. I had a solid relationship with existing pool of potential clients that I could leverage.

As I stated before, most sustainable pivots are only a few degrees off the original idea and not massive wholesale changes. If we’re to be honest, there are far more businesses that can’t pivot, than those that can.

Sometimes that pivot can mean throwing in the towel, cut your losses and live to fight another day.

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Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Greg Weatherdon has been there, done that. As an entrepreneur, he learned not only how to get a business to the point of running smoothly, but also how to reduce the number of hours he worked, delegate more responsibility to his employees, and take longer vacations while his business chugged along like a well-oiled machine. And now he is providing the secret to success.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

This is a guest post by Dennis Geelen of Zero In.

Take a minute and think of a few companies that pop into your head that were once seen as leaders in their industry but, for one reason or another, eventually came crashing back down to Earth.  Maybe they have since been surpassed and are no longer a household name.  Perhaps they filed for bankruptcy.  Or maybe you are thinking of a company that was forced to close its doors and shut down for good.

Dennis Geelen

Why be Customer Centric?

When I ask people to go through this exercise, many typical companies pop into their head.  Blockbuster, Kodak, and Sears being among the most notorious that come to mind.

But the truth is, most businesses are not set up for long-term success.  Any company that is currently a leader in their industry could potentially be a footnote in history 5 to 10 years from now.

In fact, the stats are staggering.  25% of all new businesses do not make it past the first 2 years.  50% don’t make it past the 5-year mark and only a quarter of businesses end up being sustainable past 15 years.

That is insane!  The obvious question here is ‘why’?

To answer that question, we need to look at some trends that so many companies (large and small) tend to fall victim to.  Whether they got off on the wrong foot from the beginning or whether these trends slowly creep into the business over time, they are both common to so many businesses and ultimately cause their demise.

  1. They are, or they become, too inward focussed
  2. They are, or they become, too set in their ways

Let’s examine each of these issues and I am sure you will be able to see these trends in so many businesses (maybe even your own!).

First, there is the issue of being too inward focussed.  By this I mean that they have a tendency to spend the majority of their time thinking, talking, analyzing, and strategizing about their products, their services, or their financials. 

Now don’t get me wrong, these are all important things to consider and manage in a company.  However, a major focus (probably the biggest) should be outward.  Your customers.  Who are they?  Why do they purchase your product or service?  What value are you adding?  Why do some choose your competitors products or services?

Being a customer centric company, top to bottom, from your purpose, to your sales, to your marketing, to operations helps protect you from fixating inward too much and losing touch with why you are in business in the first place.

Second, there is the issue of a business being too set in their ways.  By this I mean that a business can become too rigid over time.  This happens when a company has found processes, methodologies, or business models that they believe very strongly in (and likely for good reason).  However, unless you have been living under a rock the past 20 years you understand that things change, and sometimes fast!  If you find you or your team members saying ‘this is the way we do things around here’ your business may be at risk of falling into this trap.  You might be too rigid.

A more subtle way that this can happen is that your business becomes too complacent.  In this case, the phrase you may hear amongst your team members is “if it isn’t broken, why fix it?”  Now I am not saying that businesses should invoke change just for the sake of change, but you easily run the risk of getting into a complacent comfort zone and be ill prepared to be nimble and flexible and open to change when you have to be.  Whether your business is too rigid or too complacent, watch out!

Set yourself up!

The antidote to this issue is to foster a culture of innovation.  Businesses need to be intentional about always finding new and better ways to deliver value to their customers.  They can do this by implementing principles and practices so that their employees are encouraged to come up with new ideas (in a structured environment) and then pilot them and see how they resonate.

When disruptors come along (competitors, economic downturns, changes in consumer habits, pandemics, and so on) businesses need to have a culture of innovation in place so that they can be flexible and pivot quickly as needed

So how do you protect your business from becoming the next statistic and falling prey to these 2 mistakes?  Be intentional about turning your company into one that is customer centric and innovative.  Set yourself up for long-term success.

You may also enjoy Innovation Starts at Home 

THE ZERO IN FORMULA, Dennis Geelen’s latest book, challenges business owners, CEOs, and leaders to think differently about their company.

In THE ZERO IN FORMULA Geelen walks you through the recipe. You will learn what it means to be customer centric, with strategies and tools you can apply to your business. You will understand what it means to be truly innovative, with principles and practices you can implement. You will be guided through the recipe step-by-step to build your successful foundation. You will learn from stories and examples of other businesses and their successes and failures. Whether your business is just starting out and looking for a blueprint to follow over time, or your organization is an existing business and you realize you need to make some corrections and get back on a better course, this book is your guide.

https://www.zero-in.ca

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Greg Weatherdon has been there, done that. As an entrepreneur, he learned not only how to get a business to the point of running smoothly, but also how to reduce the number of hours he worked, delegate more responsibility to his employees, and take longer vacations while his business chugged along like a well-oiled machine. And now he is providing the secret to success.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

Money, it’s one of those personal topics that many people are uncomfortable discussing. Why that is, varies from person to person.

Even inside a business that uncomfortableness exist, but that needs to change. Generally speaking, the only time the subject of money seems to ever comes up is in the heat of the moment in comments such as “Do you know how much that costs?”. Even then the word money is not used.

When I ask owners what business they are in, I usually get the expected answer such as “I’m in retail or I own a restaurant or I’m in a service business of some sorts.” These are all technically correct answers and serve to explain your enterprise to your external customers and strangers alike.

However, I would like you to consider an alternative definition that should be used internally within the organization and be at the forefront of your decision making process. What is that internal definition? Simply, “We are in the money business!”

dollars, pounds, yen

And it matters not one bit what industry you are in. At the end of the day, you are in the money getting business. Pure and simple. You exchange your services in return for money.

The service you offer is nothing more than the vehicle you use to get that money.

This may sound a little crass to some because they don’t want to think of their business in such impersonal terms. Others are so emotionally committed to their desire to be an entrepreneur that they have fallen in love with their idea and not the business of the business itself.

Let’s be honest, the reason 99% of us went into business in the first place, is the allure of potentially making more money. To be sure, we had other reasons such as being our own boss, validating our idea or just finding a better way to do something. But at the end of the day, the majority of us were seeking higher incomes.

Focusing on money is not to say that you have to become Scrooge like. Nor does it mean caring less about your customers or how you do things. To the contrary, having higher profitability and more money gives you the ability to actually increase your service levels. The alternative means that you’re on the proverbial treadmill generating additional low margin business just to keep the doors open, which results in customer service taking a back seat to everything else.

No, it means being selective in where you commit this precious resource. It also means getting your staff to understand that their actions can impact, good or bad, the profitability and financial health of the company. But you need to reinforce that position with them. You need to make them understand that their actions have a cost associated with it.

Loving what you do is one thing, but it’s got to be profitable and the more money or profit you make allows you to build a safety net under your company. Consider for a moment, how unprepared so many small businesses were in the face of the Covid-19 lockdowns. Sadly, many have locked their doors forever.

Changing the mindset

 

There’s really only two things you need to know about money, where you get it and where you spend it. So, the logical place to start is to understand where you get your money.

It’s been my experience that just about every business has revenue categories. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs don’t bother to segregate their services into any formal groupings. As a result, they have no idea what percentage each product or service groupings contribute to their revenue.

 

But revenue grouping is only half the equation. We often hear that we should be focusing most of our time on revenue generating activities. I absolutely agree that this should be every entrepreneurs priority, with one added caveat. These revenue generating activities need to be profitable and we should be focusing on the most profitable of these activities.

Therefore, in order to determine which revenue generating activities are the most profitable, we need to be able to attribute what it costs to generate those revenue. You do so by allocating all the expenses incurred to each of the revenue groups. In doing so, you can now determine the most profitable areas of your business. In other words, what’s making you money, where you’re losing money and everything in between.

By having the ability to analyse your revenue categories, you can begin to make educated decisions. When you consider how much labour, overheads, and other expenses go into generating revenue and then to find out you lost money or only break even, it’s heartbreaking. Granted getting a nice big cheque for a project you just completed is a wonderful feeling. However, if it has a low profit margin, you are effectively just trading dollars.

So first and foremost, you need to prioritize your activities on the most profitable products or services you offer. Then you need to determine how you can increase your activity on these most profitable items.

At the end of the day your objective is to narrow your focus to those items or activities that are the most profitable and quit wasting time on marginal ones. There are only so many hours in a day available to you and your staff. If you subscribe even just a little bit to the 80/20 rule you’ll quickly determine that a lot of your energy and your staffs is wasted on low value products and activities.

I know many will say that they have to keep their prices low in order to compete. This is where you need to get your head around the fact that you are in the money business. If that’s truly the case, get the heck out of that line of business or quit offering that product. If you need to stay in that line of business, then find a way to increase the value of your offer without increasing your costs. That way you’ll you can demand a higher price, thereby increasing your profits. These decisions are well within your control.

A True Story

Many years ago, I undertook this exercise to determine where we were making our money. Although it was a tedious process, it was an eye opener. The net result of that undertaking was that I cut over $300,000 of revenue from the company by identifying low margin activities and clients in industries where, due to competition, we were unable to manage any form of price increase to make them more profitable.

This was at a time when my company had just achieved breakeven and this decision was going to be a major setback. However, as expected or maybe I should say hoped, our profitability grew significantly, and we were profitable in less than a year.

In hindsight, it made perfect sense and the risk was more imagined than real. When you consider that we focused on fewer but more profitable services and clients or labour and other expense inputs dropped dramatically, which resulted in more profits for the company.

In addition, this exercise helped us to identify and target those clients and industries where there was very little competition. Doing so allowed us to regain the lost revenue within 18 months and our profitability continued to grow. 

Just to reinforce this point, Covid-19 forced many global foods companies to reduce their product offerings in order to focus on their core products. Lays, Procter & Gamble, Kraft and the Campbell Soup Company, stop producing, not just cut back many of their slower moving products because demand on their core products exceed their ability to supply. Some of these companies reduced their offering by upwards of 18%. Many of these cut products may never return to our grocery shelves because the companies realized that their profits came from their core products.

Spending money is easy, making money is hard

Another thing to keep in mind is, that spending money is easy, making money it is hard. Because of how hard it is to make money, every spending decision, whether that be on equipment or staff needs to be paid for somehow. For example, if you’re netting 10% profit on the bottom line, a $10,000 expense requires you to generate extra revenue by a factor of 10. In other words, you need to generate $100,000 in additional revenue just to cover the cost of that expense.

So before you or your staff clicks the “Add to Cart” button or slap down your credit card on supplies or that new piece of equipment, you better make sure it’s necessary. Because at the end of the day, that’s less money you’ll be able to take out of the company personally.

Money is such a precious commodity in any business. Some of the benefits of having money in the bank, is that it’s a great stress reliever knowing we have the capabilities to meet our obligations. Taking that stress off the table, then allows us to concentrate our time on more productive duties.

It’s in times of crisis that the importance of money is reaffirmed. Crisis come in all shapes and sizes. From key customers that quit buying to pandemics, each can seriously mess with your business. So by adopting the attitude that you’re in the money business, will go a long way significantly increasing your profitability and your income.

I’d like to know your thoughts if you were faced with a similar situation. So, leave your comments below.

You may also enjoy Clustering for Profits

If you found this of value, please pass this along to any business owner that you fell could benefit by understanding that they’re in The Money Business

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Greg Weatherdon has been there, done that. As an entrepreneur, he learned not only how to get a business to the point of running smoothly, but also how to reduce the number of hours he worked, delegate more responsibility to his employees, and take longer vacations while his business chugged along like a well-oiled machine. And now he is providing the secret to success.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

For many Covid-19 has temporarily changed the way business is done and for others those changes will be permanent. This is both good and bad. The good is that for those that adapt, they will find news ways to do business. The bad is that for those who remain steadfast in their ways, they may not survive. This brings me to today’s topic, discounts.

Discounts are necessary

Before going any further, many of the enterprises deemed as essential along with those businesses that have only had to relocate their workers to their home, are most likely able to continue with business as usual and don’t need to offer any discounts. For the rest though, discounts may be necessary.

There’s lots of commentary on social media platforms about the merits of maintaining your pricing during these disruptive period. These statements are usually is prefaced by slogans such as “Get paid what your worth” or “Don’t discount your value” and so on. These are all great motherhood statements that have some value when things are normal. But these aren’t normal times.
Let’s be honest, even in the best of times, you only get to take that position when you’ve been in business long enough and have created a reputation as an organization that consistently deliver results and are deemed to be an expert in your field. So, regardless of what you think you’re worth. It only matters what your customers think you’re worth and chances are your customers are being enticed by intriguing value propositions by your competitors.

30-50% of SME’s will fail

Having been through more than one economic upheaval and survived to talk about it, I disagree with whole notion of not offering discounts. Based on estimates, approximately 30-50% of SME will not make it and as an owner you have but one goal for the next while-survival, period. Since the majority of your customers are probably suffering, they will be looking discounts on any spending they’re making and if you don’t, your competitor will.

Assuming 30% failure rate, the 1st 10% are already gone, with the 2nd 10% only weeks away. It’s the last 10% who you need to worry about, because they’ll be gunning for you by targeting your customers by offering discounts. Why? Because they’re desperate. This in turn will put huge competitive pressure on your business as you compete with lower priced competitors. For those that are financially secure or are unaffected by the impact of Covid-19, hallelujah! Otherwise, you need to make sure you keep cash coming in, because if you’re not selling anything, you risk falling into the 30%.

Protect your brand

The challenge in all of this is fighting our own pride and ego. They say that “pride goeth before the fall”. This translate into those that are too arrogant will fail. If there ever was a time to seriously consider offering temporary discounts, this is it. It’ll give you the ammunition to protect your brand and your company. Remember that breaking even is ok, because in times like these, profit can wait for better days.

Covid-19 Discounts

So, how do you go about offering discounts that don’t become permanent? One simple way is to turn what you’re doing upside down. Why not consider offering a temporary Covid-19 discounts on your product and services? You can communicate to your clients that in these difficult time you want to do your part and help other business owners.

How you do this is quite simple. On your quotes or invoices, you show what your regular fee or product costs as you would normally. Then on the next line you show “Less temporary Covid-19 discounts” and then deduct the amount of the discounts.

By itemizing the discounts as separate line items on the quote or invoice, you reinforce your goodwill gesture, even though it’s self preservation. By having it as a separate line item it reinforces that it’s a specific discount thereby inferring that this won’t be forever. Failing to list the discounts separately, effectively creates a new lower price. When things return to normal and you and your business is still standing when many aren’t, you can then begin to remove your discounts.

To quote Darwin “It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”

 

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Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Greg Weatherdon has been there, done that. As an entrepreneur, he learned not only how to get a business to the point of running smoothly, but also how to reduce the number of hours he worked, delegate more responsibility to his employees, and take longer vacations while his business chugged along like a well-oiled machine. And now he is providing the secret to success.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

Those of you that know me and have either purchased my book or attended an event that I have spoken at, know that the advice I share is based on getting the basics right. By getting the basics right, you can grow your business and your leadership skills that allow you to attain a high level of freedom by removing the shackles of ownership.

Financial cushion

Unfortunately, what I preach has never been sexy or opportunistic. These basic, time tested business philosophies are easy to understand and don’t require any special skills to execute. The only requirement is that you spend the time to implement them.

It’s interesting that during these surreal times, with a pandemic raging, that those who’ve gotten the basics right, will be just fine. It’s not that they’re thriving at the moment, as a matter of fact, like most, they’ve had their businesses turned upside down. However, what they have in common is that they have built a financial cushion that will allow then to weather this storm and survive.

Where have all the experts gone?

So this brings me to my question- Where have all the experts gone? Where are all those talking heads with the latest and greatest strategy? Where are those experts, with the can’t miss lead generation program or consumer engagement secrets gone? Where are they now when your world has blown up? The thing is, many are one trick ponies and that’s all they’ve been preaching for the past few years. Sadly many entrepreneurs assumed that by following these messiahs all their problems would go away. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. To be successful, you need to hope for the best, but plan for the worst. And it doesn’t get much worse than this.

Not to be let off the hook, let’s not forget all those government funded incubators and post secondary entrepreneur programs that have encouraged thousands of individuals to become an entrepreneur. Where is their voice in all this chaos? Shouldn’t they, with all their expertise, be offering the small business community actionable solutions or ideas to help them survive?

Based on my research, all I see them doing is regurgitating information on the various government emergency programs and not much else. Isn’t this the time when these organizations should be rallying their resources to help their memberships or alumni? It is, but they aren’t.

30-50% will fail

So with all these so called experts, where are they now when the small business community is being decimated? Unfortunately, many of their followers won’t survive as it is estimated that 30%-50% of small businesses won’t make it through this turmoil. Regrettably, how to prepare for economic upheaval, is something they just don’t preach.

For those successful entrepreneurs that will survive, they have a few of things going for them. They remember the past, are focused on the present and are looking to the future.

The past

History has a nasty habit of repeating itself and understanding that economic turmoil is a regular occurrence that hits entrepreneurs the hardest. And each time it happens it decimates a high number of businesses because they didn’t plan for the worst case scenario. Let’s be honest. This pandemic is the proverbial 100 year storm and is extreme, but it still an economic upheaval. Those businesses that will fail, never placed any effort to build a financial foundation under their businesses. They just kept reinvesting everything in their enterprises.

Much like betting at the casino, those that will survive understand that cash is king and when you’re up, you should consistently take some money off the table and continue until such time that they’re only playing with the houses money. Sadly, many just kept betting it all and now they have no money to tide them over and will become a statistic.

The present

Those that understand the past and have built their financial resources, can calmly focus on maintaining what they’ve built. To be sure, it’s not business as usual and they’re feeling the pain, but having the financial wherewithal allows them to scale down their business and focus on surviving. Although they are still feeling the stress with the current situation, they’re not panicking and are able to focus on reinventing or innovating in a calm manner. Let’s be honest, making decisions under duress is never a good idea, simply because we’re not thinking clearly.

The future.

Those entrepreneurs with a financial cushion, know that things will get better in the future and are preparing for the day that things turn around. They understand that when that day comes, they can once again accelerate their business growth and with far fewer competitors they’ll easily make up any lost ground. As an added bonus, they will most likely grow their margins because they’ve either innovated and/or found savings by just doing things a little differently.

Maybe things will change once this is over. Maybe how we promote entrepreneurship will also change, but I have my doubts. Growth for the sake of growth increases risk far greater than necessary and needs to be tempered with a good dose of common sense.

You may also enjoy Starting Over 

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Greg Weatherdon has been there, done that. As an entrepreneur, he learned not only how to get a business to the point of running smoothly, but also how to reduce the number of hours he worked, delegate more responsibility to his employees, and take longer vacations while his business chugged along like a well-oiled machine. And now he is providing the secret to success.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.