Choosing to Fail–Or Not

I write often to my business owner clients about their media intake — and the kinds of things we’re allowing in front of our eyes and ears so that we can remain sharp and focused on the kinds of things we need to be focused on as leaders.

That’s certainly true of media intake, but it can also be true for the categories under which we are looking at the data for our business.

Revenue, costs, profit — these are pretty standard.

But there are probably other areas you need to be looking at if you want to remain strong and moving into the future.

However, some business owners may just choose to ignore this kind of metric. Will you?

Dennis Bridges’
“Real World” Business Strategy Note
Choosing To Fail — Or Not
“The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.” – Harry S. Truman

You know that the failure rate in small business in this country is very high. At least 85% and maybe as high as 98% of new small businesses fail before they hit the five year mark. And the statisticians, and many accountants, will tell you that they believe that the reason for that failure is under-capitalization and poor fiscal management.

I can point you to small businesses that have failed with enough money to do everything they needed to do ten times over. And some management consultant will tell you it’s poor management ability. I suggest to you that what it is in most cases is that the small business owner decided that once he or she was in business, they only needed to look at the things that they wanted to look at.

Here’s one example: Many people in many types of small businesses believe they don’t have to sell. For example, doctors believe that they don’t have to sell. There are a lot of restaurant owners who believe that. Many retail store owners believe that “we open the doors, and the customers come to us, and we don’t have to sell anyone.”

You obviously have some method you use to promote what it is that you do or you wouldn’t even be in existence. But you may only have one method or two methods or three methods that you use. The more methods, the more business. Diversity is the creative opposite of laziness.

So may I humbly suggest that you need to think: “How can I use more methods to attract people to do business with me than any other competitor will use?” This may be trying out media which you’ve never tried. Testing phone sales. Attracting different kinds of referral partners. Selling additional services to existing customers.

Again, the more methods, the more business. Look beyond sales NUMBERS and evaluate a new metric: sales methods.

You can make the choice today to remain stuck with your existing methods and processes. But I can guarantee you that if you only “see” what is happening today, and do not make positive plans to add additional lines of revenue or sales streams into your business for the future, then you will reap the fruit of that thinking down the line.

It is all too easy to get caught in the momentum of what you are doing RIGHT NOW and avoid planning for the future.