May 13, 2009

Stop the Optimism

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By: Jim West

This title may seem diametrically opposed to many of the articles we've shared these past few months.  Entrepreneurs are by their nature optimistic, and it has hurt some of them over this past year.  On April 14,  I  was a presenter on Commercial Real Estate, at a local Chamber of Commerce event. One of the  key themes I addressed  was that across the country, companies of all sizes are re-engineering their business models before our very eyes.  Yet, because many entrepreneurs are optimistic, they have a belief things will naturally get better, and postpone taking actions.  I have a friend who consults with struggling restaurants. We've both worked with clients over the past year who have had to close operations.  He was reviewing a situation where  the client had run up substantial obligations to the IRS, Washington state agencies, and eventually his vendors and landlord.  The key idea here, is that it wasn't until this past month that anyone, business owner, vendor, landlord, took action to create a significant change.  Issues had been clearly building for well over twelve months.  The reality for this particular business, is it may be too late, the mountain is to big.
 
In todays economic environment, don't wait. ACT.  Don't be optimistic. ACT.  If you have one significant bad month in sales, or have a trend of several bad weeks, call someone.   Your accountant, your attorney, Jan Harte at SBDC, SCORE, your landlord, a commercial real estate agent to review your lease, a marketing company to help improve sales. 

Yes we know it is uncomfortable, and hurts the pride to share such information.  Yet look at the news everyday, major long term successful companies both nationally and locally have stepped forward, aired their challenges, and have taken action to fix them. Every day you wait takes away resources and options that will help your business survive. 

   Your Future : Own It