However, there are good performers, fair performs and poor performers. The world is made up of all three kinds. If your competition is made up of people in the two lower categories you might have a chance to do some business that counts. On the other hand, if your competition is made up with good performers all around your business life you will find the going rather tough to travel. Competition sets the mark as to how well your business model will be able to perform. Having excellent competitiveness on the other side will either teach you how to compete better or destroy your efforts to keep up the pace. You will decide which one it becomes.
Your determination will become a key factor in how much you learn how to become more competitive. When your competition eats your lunch often enough, you can either fold up shop or get more determined to learn how to compete better. You will need to add a bunch of determination to your lunch menu.
Some of my best business ideas came from my determined madness to rise up to the competitive landscape that was eating my lunch. The competition was having their way with my customers and I was not winning as much as I needed to win. I was obviously not as smart of an operator as they were. They were well ahead of me in the competitive game. They were winning more often than my business model on the same business turf we were sharing. When it comes to business, I hate sharing. I have become determined to figure out ways to attract more customers. That is what a good business leader learns how to do best. Become determined to gain more market shares.
On a side note...learn how to play fair, however. Do not cheat, manipulate or steal the market shares your way. Learn how to play fair, honestly and clean. You are capable of becoming properly determined. Do so. That is a whole separate subject. We are not going to cover that subject in this post. Just trust me on this one. Always play pair. Become determined but keep it clean.
I met with a banker the other day. We were chatting about several things and ideas. We had not seen each other in a very long time so once we got caught up on each others lives we started in on business ideas and thoughts. It was a great conversation. We had fun and I learned some things. It was nice getting caught up on some things in the community.
One of the subjects we shared was a little story about a packing plant business in the region. The conversation centered around the idea that this packing plant was struggling with hard times. Several assumptions were shared. It was all news to me. That packing plant employs many people. It would not be a good thing to see them decide to pull out of the community and leave town. It was a tough subject with the possibility of becoming a future challenge. That banker encouraged me to find a way to figure out how to go help that plant become more successful in its business efforts.
How do you comfortably insert your business repair skills into a broken business model and gain the respect of its leadership ways without striking a badly inserted presentation on the nose? How does the repair process comfortably begin? How does this criticism process become something worthwhile?
Criticism is now on the table for discussion. How do we process this kind of criticism? When a business model begins to head down the losing path, they will become slightly defensive about where they are headed. I repair broken business models. Watching defensive attitudes increase is normal stuff in the world of business repair work. We usually do not like to admit we are failing. We become more defensive when the criticism builds up a head of steam. This is when determination and criticism shake hands. The two characteristics become magically linked together like best friends. One protects the other from pain and suffering. This is exactly what makes business repair more difficult to do.
Let's take a deeper look.
I know a lot of people wired this way. I have these tendencies. One thing I notice about determined people...even if they are wired to get a lot of work done, improvements can still be made. That is just part of the real world of reality. Life always has room for improvement. The most determined business leaders still have room for improvement.
I approached the business leader of that packing plant. I was able to discuss the 'word' on the street about their troubling results of trying to make it in the competitive world of packing plant life. I discovered how determined some business leaders can become. As the most articulate criticism was being shared about the level of results his packing plant was producing, that business leader turned up the dial on his level of determination. The criticism and his determination began to shake hands. In fact, they linked together like old best buddies. He become defensive and shared how well the packing plant was performing. He did not know I had a conversation with a banker about the performance of that packing plant. I know bankers are not supposed to share sensitive stuff about their clients. Guess what? Some do. If that raises your eyebrows, lower them back down. Integrity is not as punctual as you might want to believe.
I listen. I share. I draw what information I can to carefully pull out of a story that needs some attention. When a business model begins losing ground one of the first things it starts to do is to find a way to get its determination and criticisms to shake hands. That is not always the best thing to do. As a business repair leader, I find this process very distracting. It is exactly this kind of process that helps to drive a bad business model deeper behind its bottom line of performance desires. When determination and criticism begin to shake hands, the world of defense grows too strong to manage properly. The business model who performs this meeting of old friends, in the wrong way, is a business model headed for tougher times.
I love strong-willed business leaders. I love determination. I respect those kinds of leadership characteristics. They carry some very good attributes that often times are very much needed to help a business perform its winning ways. However, when determination faces criticism and the two decide to shake hands...a bad deal has been formed. That bad deal will eventually grow up to become a bad player that can take down the winning ways that business model ever hoped would return home. Criticism and determination do not make for good bed partners. They produce too much potential for added denial, too much destruction and not enough polices to support healthy competition. The future success of any business is limited when determination and criticism shake hands. It is a deal not worth doing.
I like it when I meet a business leader who describes how things in business are growing tougher to handle due to some errors that were made. I love it when I meet one of those leaders who then describes what is being done to correct that bad path. That is a leader who will win more often in the future than lose. That is the truth and will always be the truth. The business leaders who function in denial, who allow determination and criticism to shake hands often, are the ones who competitors like to have hanging around. They are the business leaders who always struggle to find wrong ways to dig out of the business problems they continue face.
When determination and criticism shake hands, the business path becomes very hard to do.
Until next time...
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