“One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do” - Henry Ford.
All throughout my life I have had the pleasure of doing things most people dream of. The part they don't realize is each of these events, was a dream once for me too. Two years ago, we shut down our business to re-think what we did. We asked the customers we had, what they liked and what we could do better for them. We analyzed everything we did, and stopped doing several things that looked profitable and turned out not to be. We placed more emphasis in other areas that were very profitable and offered a very high level of service our customers were asking for.
In October of that year, I submitted an article to my friend Jason Knott at CEPro, and got flamed in a big way when he published my outlook online. The prevailing view was that shutting down to work on the business would put most companies out of business. Clearly to me this begged the question: Why be in business? What no one knew was that we had already shut down, re-evalutated, changed staff, closed a location and moved forward. I believe we did so successfully. We weren't turning the gross numbers we did the previous year, but we were still alive after 10 years in an industry abandoned by Tweeter and Circuit City as well as a host of other smaller companies across the country. Even then it was still comfortable.
One of the personal goals my wife and I set during that rethinking period was to take a trip to the big island of Hawaii. That trip was fantastic, and gave me a chance to look at my life separate from the business. During this trip we had a chance to look forward to an entirely different economic year than we had over the last four. Once again we are re-focusing based on our best guess of next years economic climate. I also took a look at where I was in life, and where I needed to go. The obvious and easy choice would have been to return to Houston and keep moving in the same direction.
A great example of a business with the ability to adapt and change with the environment is Nokia. The Finnish cell phone maker started out many decades ago in an industry that has no relation to electronics. Over time they re-evaluated the opportunities in the market and set new targets. All I suggested in my CePro submission was that we all need to think like Nokia and change the road we are on if that road isn't going where we want to go. Myopia set in for many readers and they pretty much called me a lunatic. I wrote a book about the entire experience of rebuilding a company twice, then effectively closing it to re-create it as a new company. Jason Knott reviewed the book a few months back, it is called So, Now What?
When I say readers called me a lunatic, I think this was just their perception of my thought not fitting their comfort zone. Our view is just our perception, so it is really just how we see the world isn't it? We all color our view with our belief system and interpretation of our circumstances. In a financial class for owners at a management conference, Leslie Shiner of the Shiner Group made that point very clear.. For those of you that missed her class, the point was simple. Step back, look at what you do, why you do it, and ask is it worth it and is it really what you want to do? If you want to deliver free food to people and have no need to make money, have at it. If you need to make a profit so you can eat and your business isn't making enough or isn't making anything, regroup, find a new target and try again. There is money to be made in every economy, it is a matter of finding what you can do best to serve others in that economy.
It would be very easy and comfortable to have stayed in our stores and continued doing what we did until they died the inevitable death. Instead we stepped way out of our comfort zone and moved towards something new. Even though it was out of our comfort zone, it was within our knowledge base. By staying uncomfortable it forced us to challenge everything we were thinking and doing. Within weeks we had two new operating bases both creating value and more importantly income.
One of the keys to success is always moving forward toward a goal. It has been said, if you aren't moving toward your goals, you are moving away from them. When we become comfortable we stop growing. Look around nature, when anything stops growing, it starts dying. Do you want to grow or die? Growth and death will happen in every economy. It doesn't matter if you are an airline or internet marketer. You must adapt to the winds of change in order to keep moving and growing towards your goal. What can you focus on and move out of your comfort zone so you and your business can grow?
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