Grow Your Business

Recently I took a doctor recommended stress test and I realized I was demonstrating physically how the world is impacting our businesses and how we need to act to be able to maintain our success in the new economy.

How it used to be.

When I first got on the treadmill life was good. It was a nice manageable steady pace. Easy to maintain without much exertion and as long as I simply kept moving I was handling everything just fine.

When the economy was robust that was how we ran our businesses. It was easy to be profitable and maintain our expected results without much stress because we understood how the business world functioned. Sure we’d trip once in a while but with a bit of time it was relatively easy to recover.

The business world for the most part operated as we expected and we had confidence in how our actions were going to deliver for us – keeping us on track moving down the road.

Changes are made for us, or are they made to us?

After a couple of minutes on the treadmill my cardiologist asked how I was feeling. Confidently, I said, “Fine, I can do this all day.” Next thing I know the elevation is changing on me and I am now walking up a steep incline.

Largely because of the impact of the speed of the internet and the globalization of business, the pace of business for most of us changed. We suddenly had to have a plethora of technology changes; we were competing in a bigger league, customers were better informed and demanding more.  The learning curve from this caused many business owners to begin feeling like they were constantly working uphill. For many executives these were not changes they were craving, these were changes forced on us like the doctor deciding I suddenly needed to be working uphill.

Businesses were excited with the new opportunities being presented but realized they had to be much more agile to work at this new pace and in better shape to be consistently working up the hill.

At this pace we need agility over stability.

Still able to manage this pace and increased incline I felt confident. My thinking was, I work out, do half-marathons, have good health measurement numbers over the years and I can handle this test. That is, until this uphill pace was increased to a new faster pace I was unfamiliar with. An external force was pushing me to perform at levels beyond my comfort zone. (I swear I saw an evil smile cross the doc’s face when he did this.)  I realized at this pace a small trip would leave to a painful stumble. I found myself working harder and realized my stability on my feet needed to be replaced with agility on my feet.

Business is going through this same shift. Stability was an important desire for decades. Remember how businesses would tout how long they had been in business? Today, people care less with how long you’ve been in business and care more about how well you are doing at this moment in time. Stock holders and customers share this view. Stability is rapidly being replaced with a need for agility – the ability to operate at increased speeds and constantly uphill.

Look at the before and after pictures.

Before I stepped onto the treadmill the doctor took a series of pictures of my heart and shortly after the treadmill stress test was completed more pictures were taken for contrast and comparison.

Businesses should be conducting comparison studies within themselves. Take a snapshot of your business from five years ago and compare it to your current operations. How do things look? Were you more profitable then than you are now? Did you feel more comfortable and confident then than you do now? Be cautious not to simply look at the numbers – they can be deceiving. For decades my medical numbers have been solidly in the normal zones for health.  Keep in mind, many businesses have died in the last few years that according to regulators and auditors were in great shape as far as numbers go.

Look at the heart of your organization. How well are you dealing with your stress test? Are you increasing you abilities and agility to operate at this new pace or are you huffing and puffing trying to maintain until “things get back to normal?” In my case the stress test saved my life with the doctor’s expertise in knowing what he was looking at and how to properly deal with what he saw. Is it time to save your business by taking that same approach and analysis and incorporating the skills of experts?  I know it’s time to take care of the health of your business.

On a personal note: I encourage my business friends over the age of 50 to consider talking with your doctor about taking a stress test. At the very least it will establish some baselines for comparison as you age, or as in my case it could also be a life-changing event.

As a child I walked to school when it was less than a half mile from my house. When I moved up to the school that was further away I walked to the end of the street and waited for a bus to get me. The bus was painted bright yellow and had blinking red lights on it.

This morning I witnessed a dad driving his junior high school aged child in the family golf cart three doors down to the corner to be picked up by a school bus. It is still painted yellow, but now is equipped with an emergency exit, blinking yellow and red lights, a retractable stop sign with blinking red lights, a swing arm that opens in front of the bus, strobes lights on roof of the bus, large rear view mirrors mounted on the front bumper, and once the kids are on the bus before it pulls off the driver gives five short toots of the horn.

We are teaching children that being responsible is someone else’s job. In my day, we wanted to be fiercely independent and would be embarrassed if our parents had driven or walked up to the bus stop. We wanted the government to impact us as little as possible. We wanted to the opportunity to make our own way.

Today young children are not allowed out of our sight, playtime is painfully structured and organized by adults and children spend more time in front of a screen than any generation in history. We expect the government to take care of our healthcare, our retirement, our security, bail us out when we over extend ourselves financially, send us money when natural disaster strikes and  ensure all of our needs are being taken care of.

And we wonder why the American economy is struggling and we are losing our place as the greatest economic engine in the world?

I think it all started with the school bus.

I’ve heard it called paying your dues, sweat equity, falling on your sword, and doing what it takes to survive. Bottom line it’s a red flag your business model is broken. What am I speaking of? Not paying yourself what you are worth.

I’ve never seen a business fail because the owner was being paid properly, but I’ve seen many businesses fail because the owner was not taking a check home.

If you are not getting properly rewarded for your efforts you will lose interest and energy and there is where the business failure comes from – you start just going through the motions.

You aren’t running your business to be a non-profit or damage your lifestyle. Remember why you started your company to begin with – to get paid what you are worth and improve the quality of your life!

If your business isn’t paying you enough to at least support the lifestyle you had when you started the business, why are you operating your business this way? It’s an important question to ask yourself.

This is not a question about your work ethic, how many hours you are putting in or how much desire you have to succeed. Ever watch a gerbil on a wheel? He has focus, desire and exerts lots of hard work but he never gets anywhere.

When you find yourself in this situation re-evaluate your business model because the red flag is waving indicating something is wrong. There is no joy or reward in being a martyr for your business.

Have you ever watched a movie or listened to a speaker at a conference that put you to sleep? You just get numb from the uninspiring information and delivery. A bad economy will do the same thing to your business. After 18 months of recession slow down and back-stepping, business leaders can get into a malaise that feels like the numbness experienced listening to that boring speaker.

Once this habitual plodding happens, business leaders miss good opportunities because their minds are more focused on just getting through one more month instead of looking for big jump opportunities.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Is your budget for this year set with expectation of improvement or with the fear of repeating 2009?
• Do you have wiggle room to capitalize on a fresh opportunity or do you feel overwhelmed in time and financial resources; therefore, you only hope to make it through the year?
• Are you on high energy rush and expecting to have a record performance year, or are you using the same mindset you used to survive 2008 and 2009?

Opportunities for every business will be available this year. Those leaders who are looking for them will find a way to take those opportunities and turn them into long-term success. Others will be waiting on the right time to take on such new ideas, which means those business executives will go lacking while the aggressors take more market share.

Use this month to awaken your senses, get your people vibrant in their attitudes once again and grab your share of opportunities that are ripe with potential. In talking with a gentleman who owns 600 rental properties, someone asked him if he was feeling the pinch of the economy where people were not paying or he was left with open properties. He didn’t even respond to the question, he just offered a different perspective.

He said, “I’m not worried about how many open properties I have because now is the time to focus on the great opportunity to buy more properties, so I’ve been on a buying spree getting some great deals.”

Think of your perspective. Are you more focused on the negative impact the economy has had on your business, or are you focusing on the opportunities that can be grabbed while everyone is looking the other way? This is your wake up call.