Business Building

Owners of business are often (understandably) focused on just keeping the enterprise running and trying to grow it - and this seems to take all of their available time and resources.  They do not have significant amounts of excess funds to pay for multiple advisors to keep them up to speed on the less immediate aspects of owning a business.  They also do not have appreciable quantities of time to mingle with their peers or research what areas of business ownership they may be ignorant of.

This almost Catch-22 scenario lends itself to the majority of business owners running a gauntlet of risk that is much greater than they would agree to take on.  Especially if they knew the whole range of scenarios that have played out in the businesses of many other owners who are just like them.  This is especially relevant to business owners that have made significant personal sacrifices to make it through the tough times – as they may not realize how much they are flirting with any number of disasters.

Many people though take an almost superstitious approach to risk.  They do not wish to delve into the details of the range of potentially negative scenarios, because to do so seems to almost invite these scenarios to manifest into their lives.  Instead they want to focus on the "upside", or "look in the direction that they want to go in", or focus their energies on what they want rather than what they don't want, …..and then they just hope that nothing devastating will come at them out of this self imposed blind spot.

I have seen owners build businesses to a decent size only to find out that their company name has since been adopted by so many others in the same or a similar industry that they have no brand to speak of.  I have seen business owners die and their business partners suddenly find themselves in business with the surviving spouse who has no relevant business skills or industry understanding, yet the other partners had put in place no means through which to buy the person out in case of this eventuality.

A hugely popular scenario, and a very understandable one to find yourself in, is to be over dependant on one customer, or one industry or geography.  What would you do if 50-75% of your revenue disappeared almost overnight because something changed?  It is one thing to be aware of this risk, in principle, and to know that you really should get around to do something about it.  It is entirely another thing to actually do something about it, and then find out that your enterprise is all the stronger for having done it.

What a tragedy – to sacrifice and do everything that it takes to build the business, expecting and hoping that it would all be worthwhile one day …only to have some unexpected event take it all away from you….