Looking back, I was wrong about them.  I admit it!

I am now ready to embrace the complainers!  Here’s why:

My revelation on this point occurred when Alisa, our new Business Development Manager, left during the morning for a dentist appointment, but later returned a couple of hours later, resuming her regular duties.  Thinking about my own dentist appointments that are often filled with needles of Novocain shot into my gums, making it impossible for me to talk when I return to work, I couldn’t help but notice that she seemed quite functional.

So, I asked her: “How are your teeth?  Are you in pain?  Are you still OK to be at work?” But Alisa assured me she was totally fine.

She then said to me: “My dentist told me that if all his patients took care of their teeth like me, there’d be no need for her.  She’d be out of work.”  She explained that she took great care to clean and maintain her teeth after being told how important it was, and how her dentist appointments were non-eventful checkups absent of the pain I regularly came to associate with my visits.

We talked a little more and then, my light bulb moment occurred. It came to me in a flash that if everyone with teeth, brushed, flossed, and cared for them like Alisa, what a huge impact that would have on the dental industry! How would these dentist offices stay open, if all of their patients gave them nothing to do?

Let me use my dentist as an example.  I think my dentist’s office employs about 5-7 people, and I’d guess they are all pretty well paid professionals, all doing their work on people who don’t brush and floss as well as Alisa does. What if these people had no work?  For example, my dentist is a great dentist and a great guy, but I bet he doesn’t have any other marketable skills besides dentistry (maybe watch repair, with those tools he’s accumulated and his steady hand). But the rest of his staff? Not so talented.  I foresee “Will clean teeth for food” handwritten signs by the interstate.

Now, take this idea a step further. Multiply the impact if every dentist office in the country closed because everyone took care of their teeth like they should. Think of the massive unemployment problems that would result.  I bet most of these dental workers would be out on the streets, forced to selling their stash of free toothbrushes and mini toothpaste tubes. And think about that loss of revenue that previously circulated in our economy from people paying for dentures, implants, cleanings, oral surgery, x-rays…all of it gone!  What an economic downturn our country would experience, if everyone cared for their teeth like Alisa!

And that’s when it dawned on me that I’ve been looking at this the wrong way.  All those business owners who don’t attend my workshops, who don’t make their businesses unique and distinctive…these are people I should be thanking!  The owners who complain all the time and do little to help themselves while remaining stagnant, I should hug!  These owners are the ones who are maintaining the below-average business standards that allow the rest of my clients to stand out.  These owners are the people who set the low bar! These are the entrepreneurs who make it possible for any other company to look so good, by them being so bad at what they do.  These are the people whose poor service gets anchored in the minds of customers, so when my clients’ employees go just a little above and beyond the call of duty, their efforts seem Herculean.

I am the first one to admit when I am wrong, and I was wrong about the slackers.  It was wrong for me to have berated them.  The slackers, malcontents, and complaining business owners have done nothing wrong.  Granted, they haven’t done anything particularly right either, but they don’t deserve to be flogged into changing.

I’ve changed my mind!  Immobile owners like these should be praised. They should be encouraged to “Do nothing, move nowhere, change not!” Their businesses are perfect, in their most imperfect states, and the rest of the proactive business world needs them to maintain their business inertia.

So to all owners out there who are constantly working to improve yourself and your business position, do this: The next time you see one your business peers who fits this slacker/complainer description, don’t avoid them. Don’t look away. And certainly don’t berate them with those positive suggestions of change you typically heap on them. Next time, give them a hearty pat on the back and a cheery “Carry on!”

Their mediocre business is crucial to your creation of the Destination Business of your dreams. Without them, your challenges would be much more difficult.

Every month, this economy throws another surprise at all of us. For all of you, this change in consumer buying is causing you to work harder and market smarter than you’ve ever done previously, and that is a challenge.  It’s tough to constantly try to operate you and your business at peak efficiency, not missing any sales opportunity with customers and constantly thinking about the parts of your business that need to be improved, changed, or abolished, all the while generating cash flow.

One retailer really hit the nail on the head when she told me:  “Panicking is a waste of energy.”  She’s right.  You have to stay focused on making the best use of your financial resources, using your time wisely, and deciding how to pull the best possible customers to your business, all the while understanding that luring them inside your doors is only half the battle.  Getting them to part with their money is the critical part.

This same retailer also came up with the new mantra for this economy:  “Doing OK is the new Great.”  Think about it.  With so many people pulling back on their spending, if you are writing a slight sales decrease or a slight customer count decrease, this is pretty good in some parts of the country.  Writing a small increase in customer count, individual average transaction (IAT), or if your online Internet sales are up, well, that’s a cause for celebration!  Yes, doing OK today is what doing Great used to be.

Focus on looking at your numbers.  You should know your breakeven analysis figure, and be able to analyze whether your customer traffic is down, or whether your customer individual average transaction (IAT) is down.  Now more than ever, you have to know where you stand.  We’re all passionate about our businesses, but this information has to be top-of-mind with all of us, and for too long, it’s been out of our awareness.

The good news is that I am receiving more emails and calls from many of you who are now looking more closely at your own business sales and customer traffic count numbers.  For example, many of you are now saying to me: “I am down 15% in IAT, but only 2% behind in customer count” (or whatever your specific situation is).  This is great!  It’s a little thing, but most of us have been satisfied to carry around an intuitive feeling about whether our customer count and IAT are up or down, but just having a feeling about your numbers is not good enough these days.  You have to know exactly where you are, and where you need to go, especially when it comes to customer traffic and the individual average transaction of customers as compared to last year.  Some of you have even begun your conversations with me by saying: “I knew you were going to ask, so I figured it out.”  That’s fantastic!  Congrats to those of you who are forcing yourself to look closely at your business numbers!

With that being said, there are businesses these days that are being hit hard by this economy, and many businesses are closing, and it’s important to understand something about a business closure.  Closing a business feels like failure, but not all closings are failures of the owner.  It’s not necessarily a failure of the owner when a major change in your marketplace hits a company.  Sometimes, when a major business was contributing the majority of your sales, or when a group of employees (like a group of auto workers in a factory), all are suddenly put out of work, and their spending stops, all of this is not a failure of the owner when a business closes.  Often, the sales revenue of a business and their impact on the success of the business just changes too drastically for business reinvention to occur.  Sometimes, a business just runs out of time to turn things around.

One last point:  Every business is going to have degrees of difficulty during this economy.  It’s important as an owner to not let these tough times wear you out emotionally, wear your down physically, or put you in such a negative mindset that all of your future decision-making is based on fear.  It’s important to still be the visionary for your business, to lead your team of employees with ideas and inspiration and to keep your company focused on moving through the difficulties, not bogging down and wallowing in them.  It’s tough to do, but in all your multiple roles as an owner, providing a positive future-picture for your business can only be done by you!  Only you can be the cheerleader, and no one else!