Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision – Peter F Drucker –American educator and writer
SOMEONE else also made a profound statement on hard decisions and that is Adrian Cadbury Chairman of Cadbury Ltd from 1965 to 1989. He said that “shelving hard decisions is the least ethical course“.  It is often criminal to continue without pausing, taking a deep breath and then deciding to do exactly what you know to be the logical next course of action in life or in business.
It is certainly time to decide the business must survive. No one needs to be told the times are hard and unusual. These are times that require unusual tactics to survive. Anyone who insists on the old way of doing things-except for good old principles-may not successfully weather the present storm. Even the big boys are adopting some really shocking measures to keep their heads above water.
It appears many people will literally take to the mountains to pray and meditate and search for a way forward as all manner of economic theories seem to be failing. Many though seem to have worked it out and are just waiting to try out the new ideas. Some of the great ideas so far include:
I’ll go full time. This isn’t an easy decision for many but for others, retrenchment made it worth considering. You see, a lot of folks believe it is good to have multiple sources of income and so set up small businesses and get people to run them while they mind the high paying jobs for which they were trained. The problem though is that they almost never get to see additional income coming in from these ventures.
Rather than be a source of income, most of these businesses quickly turn to expense items for the owner. Part of the salary from the paid employment goes into the small business regularly. This has been the experience of many. It is also an experience that gives a very false impression of small businesses and perpetuates the bondage that paid employment turns to for some people as the years go by. This happens by way of the business never yielding any profits or even sustaining itself such that the owner believes it is not worth abandoning paid employment for.
The standard advice has always been to set up something and get someone to nurture it until it grows enough to sustain itself and the owner before he resigns to run it. The truth is that it hardly works that way. Except in few instances, you could wait until hell freezes over and the business is still not sustaining itself not to talk of taking care of any of your needs. Most people waiting for this near-impossibility to happen therefore are never in a position to leave to manage the business. A lot of people are also known to close the businesses after a few years of losing money.
The pity of it all is that most of what we classify as small businesses do not fit into the textbook definition. Anything that isn’t quite as big as the likes of Cadbury, Unilever etc is classified as small business while in truth many of what we set up are often a few notches above a medium-scale enterprise but must appear small when we compare them to the giants that employ many of us. We invest millions of naira in acquiring land, machinery and operating licenses and then leave all these in the hands of others for many years. These abandoned businesses keep depreciating as the years go by and are soon gone.
For many, the hard decision would be to resume full time at their own business. Therein lies the salvation of the business. It is one hard decision but one many will have to make in the new year.
It is also a decision half forced on many by the rash of disengagement of staff by the finance sector. For many of those cut loose, it is the second such event in the last three years. These lost their jobs after the consolidation of banks and many of these got hit again by the on-going reforms in the banking sector. Many of those pushed out confessed they didn’t have the heart to go searching for yet another job but might go on to run the small businesses they left off over the years.
This is a welcome development for this much misunderstood and maligned sector. I can see new money coming in, new energy and a touch of real class as a whole new lot of highly educated, jet age folks move in. The problems of infrastructure might be there but I foresee a tidal wave of attack on this with the immense, but well orchestrated pressure this group is capable of mounting on whoever ought to ensure that there is light and that the roads are motorable. I can see a boom in this sector that is the life saver for many countries’ economies.
The decision comes with some price tag though; the beginning is never easy. It is usually too rough but if you could educate yourself on the business and work with mentors from the first day, the beginning won’t be that rough. It might at first cost you a few annual holidays, some friends and you notch up some more hours of work but it gets better with time.
I must get rid of toxic stuff. There is toxic stuff wherever you look in a small business and getting rid of them is often very hard. I classify toxic as anything or person whose presence is poisonous. This includes many staff, customers, mechanics, plumbers and vendors. The continued presence of these will ultimately kill the business but how on earth are you expected to carry on after these are gone? Where are you supposed to get the good stuff from? Do the right staff, customers, mechanics et al exist other than in our dreams?
I devoted four whole lot of space to discussing the various toxic beings in our lives and their effects and anyone who has been there will tell you that these are some of the major problems in small business.
Having a good number of toxic customers can for instance close down the business but then where do you see the decent customers or how do you tame or contain the toxic ones? How many customers will you have left after you shake off the toxic ones?
We will together attempt providing the how and what next of getting rid of toxic stuff but that will be for next week.