Dark Times Strategy

There are numerous small business owners hunkered down . Probably scared. Probably in the red. These are indeed, scary times. Surely, when the history is written, this recession will have a captial 'G" and a capital 'R'. It may be of some comfort to business owners down on self esteem to know they did not cause it but they are surely the victims of it. Nearly every retail business talks in terms of sales revenues being down 40%. B2B businesses are doing better but talk in terms of 15 to 20% sales drops.

Adjusting to that is hard enough but businesses are doing it by reducing pay up to 10%, layoffs, or reduced schedules or all three. You have to do what you need to do to get a break even. I don't think there is enough adjustment to work with a 40% decline in revenues. That is just too steep and owners of those businesses are in true misery. True misery. I wish customers would do what they can to improve their purchases. I wish CEO's of large corporations would scour their cities and look for opportunities to purchase a lot from a little company. Money they are spending anyway. Could mean the difference between life or death for a small business.

Owners of small business need to take heart. There is always something that can be done. In my book Going Out of Business By Design, I devote a lot of space to managing trouble. I will condense some here.

The first thing to do is get the right attitude which is Eye of The Tiger. This is the determination a tiger has just before he jumps prey. You know by the look on his face he is going to get it. Other examples--Tiger Woods behind in a golf tournament, soldiers in Afganistan searching a building, John Sullenberg landing the plane in the Hudson River with no engines, Harry Truman dropping the bomb to end WWII, George Bush seeking the bad guys for bombing our country--all had Eye of the Tiger. Rocky movies play it as their theme. Eye of the Tiger says 'don't mess with me now because you have the fight of your life on your hands'. Eye of the Tiger says there is always, always something that can be done because there is. Eye of the Tiger is a leadership attitude that inspires others. Eye of the Tiger says I will fight to the end. I will not quit. I will get the help I need and get you the help you need.

There is the story of an army captain who was charged with heading off an advancing enemy platoon. The major told him to cross the bridge and turn those guys back. He failed. The major heard a junior officer pipe up who said he could get it done, send him. So he did. This junior Eye of the Tiger captain led his men across the bridge. Once all were across it the captain blew up the bridge. Failure was not an option . His crew then prevailed. As troubled business owners let us not look for convenient bridges to run back across. Let us say to ourselves that we will spend all day every day on the other side of the bridge and be so determined until we have done what we need to do.

Once you have Eye of the Tiger attitude rally your platoon. Maybe you are good at this and maybe not. To get a band of brothers and sisters to help fight your battle the first thing you must do is drop all ego and pride and let everybody in. I repeat. Let everybody in. Business owners are proud and when it comes crunch time may find it hard to seek the help they need. This forces them to fight undermanned. Don't let that happen. Let people in. Be humble. Ask everyone one for help. Give them the numbers. Ask for their suggestions. Seek out experts or call on higher powered people. You won't be able to do it by yourself.

Eye Of the Tiger Attitude gives you a shot at a postitive attitude and the ability to produce positive motivation for the troops. Your band of brothers and sisters will then be the thing that sustains you personally if you so let it be.

(Dark Times Strategies will continue a few blogs later)