I’ve been playing guitar for over fifty years. However, one style that has been foreign to me is jazz. So, I asked my three boys (namely Devin, the 22 year old jazz composer) to give me a gift of one jazz guitar lesson for Christmas. They did, and I continue the lessons today. But I have learned that you don’t play jazz, you feel it.
Over the last 32 years as a CPA, I have seen that the typical small business owner does not strategizeabout the direction of his or her business. No, they almost always “run it by the seat of their pants,” or felttheir way through each year. The two questions they typically ask each week are, “What were my sales?” And, “Do I have enough cash to make payroll?”
If you are a small business owner you may ask, “So what? What else is there?”
That’s my point. There is a lot more to running a business than those two answers. The questions you should be asking are “Why aren’t my sales higher?” and “Why am I always short of cash when payroll comes around?”
Then the bigger question is “Why am I in business? I work so hard, struggle so much, and have no life. Why?”
The answer to these questions is: they lack STRATEGY.
You have avoided looking beyond tomorrow much less ten or twenty years into the future to envision the business that you want to become. As George Fredrick Hagel wrote, “You are what you are becoming.”
I recall a client in the credit industry. He struggled in his day to day business by constantly putting out fires. I tried to encourage him to take a strategic approach, but he was so stressed about the daily grind he could not jump off the revolving hamster wheel.
And that is basically what most small business ownersdo. They refuse to believe that there is a world outside their hamster cage and keep running and running until they kill their business or themselves (financially, that is).
This is a Cultural issue. If you are one of those persons, I have three questions for you:
- Is your business running you, or are you running your business?
- Is your business stagnate and clawing for market share?
- Do you take a little time each week to see if you are in line with a long-term strategy?
How you answer these questions reflects the reality of your business. It may not have the vitality you think it has. You may find that your business may be a casualty during the next economic recession, or it maydwindle awaydue to other external changes such as technology or the environment.
Be deliberate by creating a strategy for your business. The difference might be like the difference between playing a minor seventh chord when you intended to play a major seventh chord.
