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Flexibility is Not An Option

Guest post by: Kerri Salls

Article Overview: You are in control. Take control. You can be as flexible or as rigid as you choose to be. Life is too short to lock yourself in. The opportunity cost in business is too high to postpone opportunities, or wait for the tide to turn back to you.

Flexibility is Not An Option

“What every business must know and embrace is that you can’t foresee or predict the future – whether next week or next year”, assertedDan Kennedyin a newsletter this week.

What does that mean for you? You must have enormous flexibility – it’s not an option.

Business leaders who are too rigid in their thinking about anything end up hamstrung in relation to everything. Whoever thought Donald Trump would end up a reality-TV star! Look at Howard Stern, love him or hate him, he didn't like the FCC rules and instead created demand for his show and for satellite radio, rather than be restricted by existing standards on commercial TV and radio.

Or look at Home Depot. They made their name serving contractors and weekend warriors of the do-it-yourself-ilk. Now they are addressing the fast-growing group of consumers who demand things done for them, instead of doing it themselves. Home Depot is risking a lot to reinvent themselves to serve the changing character of their core market – homeowners.

All small business must assiduously resist the natural tendency towards complacency and thereby grow more rigid, less flexible, less accepting of change. The challenge for solopreneurs is to do the exact opposite. That is, if you think or hope that next year your business will be or look like the business you have this year; you’ll probably be out of business completely the next year! Why?

That’s where your discipline, systems and planning come in. If you use these tools, your business can adjust with the tide and use that tide to propel your business higher and faster:

• Plan on the broadest scale possible –at your annual retreat.
• Tap the pulse of your market - through your sales team, your customer feedback systems, and every program you offer.
• Track sales efforts - sales closes, returns, complaints, repeat sales to find patterns and changes in patterns. If you don’t know what those patterns are, it’s even more urgent to start tracking now.
• Marketing plans – they need to be reconsidered, tweaked or revamped often – maybe every 90 days. Just like a woman’s hairstyle, if you don’t change it up once in a while – you’ll look dated and behind the times.

Along the same lines, nothing is permanent – not business failure, bankruptcy, financial losses, missed opportunities, neglected talents, not even damaged friendship or divorce. What we each have to realize is that you are in control – even more so as the captain of your business ship. If you don’t like where you are or where you’re going, find a new track to run on (literally or figuratively); get out of your rut.

If you don’t like your life, fix it, change it. If you don’t like your job, quit. If you don’t like your business, you can blow it up, close the doors, re-invent it or even sell it. I’ve done almost every one of these things (I haven’t sold a business - yet).

The point is, you are in control. Every one of us can always come up with a litany of excuses why we can’t change it, fix it or get out. Write down everything you think you can’t change, fix or walk away from – all the Yes, buts.

Right now, just for the moment, take a break from your old thinking and assert that you are in control:

• Assert what change you would make and why you’d make it
• Assert what needs to be fixed and why it’s important
• Assert what your alternatives and options will be if you were to walk away or change it up.

You are in control. Take control. You can be as flexible or as rigid as you choose to be. Life is too short to lock yourself in. The opportunity cost in business is too high to postpone opportunities, or wait for the tide to turn back to you.

Just do one thing new or differently – then watch for results or changes in you, your team, your clients, your cashflow.

Do it now, while you’re thinking about it. Flexibility is not an option. It's a requirement.

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Article Tags: change, control, fix, flexibility, take control



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Napoleon on Project Management - Why do I include this in a list of books aimed at female entrepreneurs? Well...in the expectation that there are as many female history buffs as male ones, and in the belief that anyone interested in history will find this book fascinating, while those interested in project management will learn a thing or two. I think this was the first "gimmick" book - an author using a historical figure (usually a male, military figure, it must be admitted) to talk about modern day business management. I refuse to read any of the kind that advocates - even obliquely - the techniques of the Sopranos or the Mossad - but these military ones are pretty fun. Anyway: Only in the understanding of history, Napoleon might say, do we gain an understanding of strategy in the present. In the same spirit, Napoleon on Project Management offers the recipe for successfully managing your commitments using the strategies, tactics and priorities that propelled Napoleon himself to victory. [The book doesn't gloss over how Napolean eventually fell in defeat, of course, and there's lessons to be learned there as well. TOC Foreword by Douglas James Allan (Napoleanic Society of America) 1. The Rise to Power -The Skills to Succeed -A Compelling Vision -Diplomacy and Networking -Lessons from the Great Campaigns 2. Napoleon's 6 Winning Principles -Introduction -Exactitude -Speed -Flexibility -Simplicity -Character -Moral Force 3. The Downfall -What Went Wrong -Lessons from the Russian Invasion and Waterloo -The Four Critical Warning Signs -Napoleon's Legacy


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