One of the first things we tend to do as business leaders is to begin the process for cutting back. The obstacles keep us very aware of how conservative we need to remain in our managing ways. We cut back where we can and then some. We trim budgets down and we skimp on anything that looks progressive and risky. We hire business leaders who agree with our philosophies that trimming back is the right thing to do currently. We tend to belly up next to all of the minimalists. Those who lead from the perspectives of operating on bare minimums tend to become our best friends. We hire minimalists to help us do our business thing.
These are the signs of a troubled business model. They are not necessarily signs of a growing concern. They are signs of a shrinking model. If your model is shrinking right now, something is not happening correctly. There are literally thousands of business models all over the world doing good business growth right now. If you manage a business model that is not having this kind of thing happening to your business patterns right now, something is wrong. I am not sure that a minimalist approach is the right thing to do currently. In fact, quite the contrary. I believe it is time to expand the marketing efforts, get more clear about what needs to be done and go make those new things happen more often. This is not a minimalist point of view.
I think the business leaders who practice hiring a minimalist to lead their way are the business models destined to fail the most. This is not how the biggest winners did their thing. Business is a risk. It always has been a risk and always will be a risk. To try and eliminate this process of risk taking by pushing forward with a minimalist approach is destined to end up in the failure pile. There are too many wonderful examples out there in the business world that will easily support this point of view. Get serious. Push your leadership mind away from any minimalists views. They support too many parts of the components needed to make certain failure occurs. A minimalists approach is bound to secure more failure productions. That is exactly how too many business owners currently believe they will survive. Most are dead wrong.
Minimizing your marketing efforts, minimizing your training efforts, minimizing your capital upgrades, minimizing your customer service staffing, minimizing your product depth, selection and promotions is exactly the perfect recipe for developing slower business volumes. This kind of business planning is a futile attempt at survival. It will not work for most of the business leaders who decide to take this path. Trimming down is one thing, trimming out is another. To cut off the fat is plain old responsible business management. It is good stewardship. Cutting off solid meat, bone and valuable substance is business genocide. It will eventually guarantee the certain wreck of a business model. Do not hire a minimalist to do your trimming work. They do not understand what to trim and what to keep. They will trim just because it lowers cost. That is foolish stuff. Do not do it.
I have seen some good business models make this very same mistake. I have seen some very smart people participate in this kind of thinking. They have ended up with some terribly bad results. They also find blame in the economy. They do not accept this kind of ideology as being real. They want to believe that a business model that is struggling financially should practice heavy cost cutting. They are not promoters. They are not enterprising. They are not sharp merchants. They do not truly know how to generate new funds, increasing funds and growing models. They do know how to cut back, however. Cut-backs are their favorite resolve. Cutting costs seems less risky and more effective in the beginning. Unfortunately, cuts in the wrong areas of business and too deeply performed in the right areas of business cuts can sneak up and destroy good volume potential. Minimalists do not have the ability to discern the difference between these two efforts.
Let's examine how a minimalist tends to think.
In my business career I have gone to the bank for help countless times. I have leaned on my banking community for capital improvements, product additions, new equipment and survival funding. Every single time I went to the bank for these kinds of funds, they grilled my efforts to see if my borrowing was going to be a good bet for their institution. Sometimes they said no. Sometimes they placed a limit on the amount. Sometimes they secured my physical life to make sure they would end up with something of marketable value if everything on the loan went sour. Whatever the case, the banking community pursued our relationships with a very conservative approach. It did not seem to matter which banking institution I used. They all had a less than enthused attitude about my enterprising ways. They approached all of my loan requests with great caution.
Looking back, every single loan was paid back on time. Every single loan had some stretching work I had to do to make those loans happen correctly. It was never easy work. The bankers approached all of my business loan requests with some caution, even though I had produced a good repayment pattern of history. This is what the banking community does for a living. That is how they perform their jobs well. They take on the role of minimalists. They have a tendency to keep our enterprising minds at check. They want to make sure what we request for new funds can be serviced by the efforts we are performing to do with those new funds. They have a minimum goal...get the loans repaid. They become minimalists in that relationship. At minimum, they want repaid.
If your business model is in search for a good bookkeeper or comptroller, a banker would be an excellent choice of personalty to hire for that position. On the other hand, if your business model is in search for a marketing director or a lead manager, a banker would not be one of your best choices. The difference is in the amount of approach to risk taking they will be wired to perform. The banker would be the best choice for risk management positions. That kind of personality handles those responsibilities better. If advancement of sales, increased marketing shares and developing new markets is your business need, do not hire a banker. They process too many less risky methods to perform that kind of duty well. Bankers will fail in managing a retail business. I have seen them do exactly that trick. They are minimalists in risk taking. That is not how a retail business grows its volume.
As you build your business model, remind yourself to refrain from hiring a business leader that has a banking mentality and background as your business builder. They are great for keeping the numbers in check. They are great for adding balance to the management of the risk possibilities. They are not good for the growth portions of your business models. They are not good for the 'extra mile' consumer service side of the business model. They are not good for the unique requirements needed to expand the humanities of selling in your business model. Know these attributes before you hire this type of business model leader. It makes a big difference in the generation of new volume.
Pay close attention to hiring minimalists for your business leadership. They have a tendency to squeeze down the stuff that is necessary to do to create new and growing business volumes. I have witnessed this behavior too many times to see it hurt the business models they were trying to help. It sometimes appears to be the right thing to do, when in fact, it often times produces the opposite things desired. Know this stuff and quit going to war over it. Get an ambitious leader. Give them a limited but fair budget of funding to do the stuff they do well in producing new business volume. They will, at times, raise your concerns but good leaders that have the right kind of leadership stuff to produce increasing volumes will get it done. Those increases will eventually cover the cost of the production allowed. Be smart, not stingy. Minimalists do not get this. They get lost in the philosophy of this kind of thinking. That is one of the main reasons why their business models always seem to have the need to be trimmed to survive. The volume is not promoted to grow. The 'extra mile' work is not respected. The consumers become quietly pushed out and away from the business model by the lack of wonderful attention they prefer to receive.
Hire a minimalist to lead, then fail to win big. It is almost a certainty.
Until next time...
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