You Have Two Choices Now

During challenging times you have two choices; whine, complain and sit and wait for things to get better or you can start to see your challenges in new creative ways learning how to use these difficult periods as opportunities to get better, smarter and more effective.

Generally speaking poor business owners, during periods of difficulty, choose the first option.

Why?

For starters they feel like victims of circumstances that they couldn’t control. Well, let me tell you, the business owners who choose the second option have no more control over many of the challenges they face than the poor business owners.

But, what they do, is bring a different mindset to the problems. They look for the lessons or learning. They find ways to better manage their time and resources. They don’t waste a single minute feeling out of control. They get busy. They market smarter. They look for opportunities where they had previously ignored or took for granted.

In general they take a pro-active approach to these times where the whiners tend to sit around feeling sorry for themselves.

I don’t like difficult times any better than the rest of you but guess what? They are a part of the ebb and flow of life so get used to them. Why not use these times to hone your business skills so that the next time we have a similar problem you will be better prepared?

And we will have another economic decline. We’ve had them every 10-15 years for the past 100 years.

Consider

• New markets for your products or services.
  
• New marketing approaches that might be a little edgy.
  
• Spending more time in self-improvement; books, CD’s, Seminars.
  
• New approaches to previous customers or clients.
  
• Reduce operating cost through more effective purchasing.
  
• A rigorous self-evaluation of every aspect of your business.
  
• Better record keeping and activity evaluation.

There’s a whole lot more. So you have a choice; get busy getting better or wait till this blows over. But let me warn you, if you wait and your competitor is getting better, you’ll have a lot more to complain about when business picks up.