Time To Run Forward Or Time To Retreat?

Something To Consider Strongly!

The level of uncertainty in the business world is abnormally high.  There is no doubt about the uncertainty.  Even the giants of the business world are discussing various subjects of how to prevent the future of their potential business death.  Microsoft is entertaining all of the discussions about their future demise, regardless of their current size.  The discussion is very real stuff.  It flops alive on the pages of Fortune magazine, Businessweek and the Wall Street Journal.  It also has some telling points.  Who would have guessed it?

Amazon and Facebook circle up the headlines here and there about how they plan to prevent failure in the long run.  Additionally, business staples like Wonder Bread, Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Panasonic, Sears, Kmart, Olive Garden, Citibank and J.C. Penney's all have economic pictures that flirt heavily with ruined profits...some with deadly results.  For example, Google now owns Motorola that saved it from definite doom and is now pawning it off to the next best bidder.  Google purchased Motorola for some of its proprietary assets and is now willing to take a 'plus' billion dollar loss to get rid of the stripped-down version.  Google kept some patent rights and technological components then peeled them off to sell the remaining carcass to some scavenger who might see value in that kind of deal.  As it appears, Motorola is all but dead. It is all becoming very amazing.

Hundreds of strong business models are busy rearranging economic strategies.  Many are moving to borrow and secure bond developments that will help them to fund cash initiatives, like payroll and dividend distributions.  It has become some very crazy stuff.  The definite and extreme rush to bonds has devalued the returns once witnessed in that market.  In some areas of the economy, supply and demand still works.  The returns to investors of bonds are not as attractive as they once were.  Wall Street headlines are now warning bond investors to take flight, run away.  It is a 'catch-twenty-two' proposition.

The landscape for continuing profitably in the business world is risky stuff.  Maybe there are just too many financial creations, too many derivatives developed to mask what is truly going on.  Just take a serious glance around the ownership tables.  The act of borrowing time, fluffing up cash flow and stretching out payments to various investors, partners and time extensions has become the three legs of the current business model.  Even the greed we see in the corporate world is centered and ballooned by the extreme fear that all will be lost, sooner or later.  The premise surrounding the driving greed easily points to the idea that since we may go down soon, I am at least getting mine.  People, this is the core of the truth.  These are the roots to the tree we climb above ground.  Get real.  It is insane.  It is a complex world filled with very smart business leaders destined to playing this kind of game harder every single day.  What the heck!?

Keeping up with the wind of economic change is tough business.  I read almost three hours each day trying to develop a clearer picture of what tomorrow may bring.  I have to admit, it is very confusing stuff.  The economic landscape is just about as complex as the circuit boards we produce in the labs of high tech companies.  It is not the work of simple minds, simple procedures and easy fixings.  It is complex stuff.

To any small business owner, all of this information is just too overwhelming to digest.  Their own little worlds of buying and selling business activities has plenty of bumps in their own roads to recovery.  All of that other complex stuff is just added weight.  The small time business owners do not have the current strength to carry any more loads.  Enough is enough.

So we come to the real question for small business, what do we do next?

Is it time to run forward or time to retreat?

Page two.

Let's Try Something Different!

I love my coffee.  I like it made with great taste and a lot of tolerable heat.  I prefer it just hot enough to burn the top of my mouth without having to roll it around in my mouth to keep it from holding still.  Sipping extra hot coffee is an art.  I prefer it that way.  It fits my style much better.

The business world is living its travels in this very same way.  It seems that almost all of the innovative investment activities are flirting hard with complete collapse if they do not pan out well.  Innovations must move around very quickly to keep from becoming burned.  Most marketing innovations fail miserably in the consumer playground.  Only a certain described group of connected providers usually survive well enough to broadcast how their efforts were able to skyrocket nicely.  Their inventors, the makers, the owners and their distribution channels are among those few winning models that can boast how those market trends performed well.  Diversity is all but gone.  It seems as though everyone is racing to the same corners for success.  It is a comical game to witness.

Once in a long while, someone gets a new idea and the news about their success hits the big time.  Wow, a new corner is immediately surrounded by the efforts of every hungry business desire.  It almost looks like Lemmings headed for the beach!  It is not funny.  It is stupid.

I once had a business mentor describe to me the difference between being stupid and dumb.  Being dumb, like deaf and dumb, has a particular meaning.  Dumb means muteness, or having no knowledge.  Stupid means quite the opposite.  Stupid means we knew better but we did it wrong despite knowing better.  That is stupid.  To the leaders of business, being stupid is far worse than being dumb.  At least when we are dumb, we did not know better.  Restraint can be a very good trait.  Try it out sometime.  Quit reacting to business plans like a Lemming would react.  When one leader turns and goes the other way do not always turn to follow.  Learn how to improve how to go your own way with success.  Make your own better models.  Quit trying to copy what works.  That is exactly how the bond market became devalued!  They all went the same way.  Lemmings.  Smart people, just Lemming behaviors.

Independent business owners are just that...independent.  Remain so.  However, do not get all caught up with remaining steadfast by doing things that are not working well.  Learn the art of letting some bad practices go.  Failure to adjust properly is when independence leads to stupidity.  This is the point of business leadership that cannot be blamed on being dumb.  Only stupid works here.  Do not be independent enough to remain stupid.  Change the things that are not obviously working well.  What's more, change them immediately.  Start making those needed changes exactly today!  Run forward.

Your business model is at a serious crossroads.  The economic landscape is not forgiving our bad decisions anymore.  Each decision weighs heavy on the results surrounding our bottom lines.  The load to lift our business activities is getting very heavy to carry.  We must come up with new ideas, new models of cooperation and new ideas for developing our unique victories of tomorrow.  Retreat does not permit this kind of end to come to life.  Just ask Motorola.  They will describe it well for you.  They might even offer you some free parts to prove their point.  Why couldn't Motorola become tomorrow's technology driven television model, away from cable feeds?  What got in their way?  A leader in this market is heavily sought after.  How did they not see this future?  How did they not make the proper adjustments to move forward on those ideas?  I think I know the answer.  They become too independent!  They did not understand how to work in a more collaborative fashion and link up with other like minds to solve that problem.  As a result, they must prepare their grave for a deteriorating model.  They instead, chose to retreat.

What will it be for your business model?  Are you waiting for someone to come and save you?  Are you waiting for someone big to buy you out?  Are you waiting for some government hand out that will allow you to invest in small efforts to survive?  Check it out; Motorola did many of those same things.  In the world of business risk, we call that kind of move a retreat.  How's that working out for you?

We do not need more Motorola stories hitting the pages of business news.  We need more ideas, more innovations and more creativity.  We need more guts, more tears and more trials.  We need more goofy ideas, lost efforts and dumb approaches.  The small business world needs to recognize how it truly works in order to do what it should be doing.  Get real, get independent, refrain from playing the same old stupid games, and get moving to run forward.  Let the Lemmings do what Lemmings do.  Run forward, instead.  Go ahead, try some new quirky ideas!  The consumer market seems to love them.

Until next time...