THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT

Those of you that have been around for a while may remember a TV show in the 70's called the Flip Wilson show. It starred, you guessed it, Flip Wilson.

Flip played a number of characters on his variety show among those being Geraldine, who was always telling people her boyfriend, Killer, was going to get them. He also played the Reverend of "The Church of What's Happening Now". He seemed to have a strange approach to what a Reverend was supposed to do. His skits with all his characters were hilarious.

I mention this because something was always going wrong for him in the skits and his answer was always, "The devil made me do it". It was an easy "cop out" for everything that went wrong.

What about you? Anything going wrong in your business today? I am going to suggest that everything may not be as you want it but I am going to also suggest that the devil didn't make you do it.

Many of us, me included, seem in our business career to forget what the business plan was that we set out so diligently to follow. Those of you that don't have a business plan may be saying, "See, I'm not off track because I have no track". Well, shame on you. Remember the old saying that if you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there and you won't know which road it is. Or, as that famous baseball player/philosopher, Yogi Berra said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it".

Anyway, back to my original thought and the premise that you have a legitimate business plan to follow. It is critical to constantly be reviewing it and changing it if need be to adapt to current conditions. I said adapt to current conditions, not change on a whim.

Let me offer a couple of consequences of not having a business plan or not following the business plan or not adapting to change.

Back in the 80's a close friend of mine owned and operated a contract cleaning business in another state and was really struggling to grow. He was moving forward but at a much slower pace than he wanted.

He was cleaning a retail store in his city which also happened to be the headquarters of that chain. He had become friends with the regional manager who offered him the opportunity to clean an additional 25 stores in the region. My friend call me excited that he now had an opportunity to take a major leap into the "big time". He asked what I thought so I asked some questions in hopes that my answer and his decision would become obvious.

I asked questions like:


----With each store requiring 2 auto scrubbers, who would be responsible for purchasing the 50 scrubbers needed? The answer was he would have to buy or lease them.

----With him having to buy or lease 50 scrubbers, would the chain be signing an agreement that they would purchase them in the event the agreement canceled for any reason? The answer was no.

----Did he have the available staff to take on 25 stores all at one time? The answer was he would be able to find them.

---Did he have the available cash flow to fund such an undertaking---to make the first 3 or 4 payrolls, pay the lease or bank payments on the equipment? He was sure he could get the customer to pay one month in advance. (They didn't.)

----What about all the other supplies and equipment he would need for the start up--mop buckets, mops, vacuums, floor finish etc.? He would talk to his supplier.

----How does this type of account fit into your long range business plan? What business plan?

I'm sure I had other questions but these were the major ones I thought of as we were visiting. I wanted the best for my friend and I didn't feel this was the best for him and his family and I don't think the devil was making him do this.

Well, you guessed it. He jumped into the project with both feet. The result?

Within 6 months the regional manager friend of his changed jobs and he had a new "boss" who had a friend in another state to which he awarded the contract. My friend was devastated and this was not the time to say "I told you so". I did the best I could to console him as we both watched his business sink into bankruptcy.

I don't think the devil made him do it but had he had a solid business plan and direction he was going, this account would not have been in the plan I am sure.

Now a story about myself and how we made a decision to add a new paragraph to our business plan.

In the early years of my business we had a manufacturing plant that represented about 75% of our total volume. It was a very good and profitable account.

Early one Monday morning I received a call that because of a looming business reduction we needed to reduce the cleaning budget to one third of what it was. Ouch! That smarts. Boy, did it ever. Even though everyone at the customer's place of business knew what was happening, we spent a lot of time explaining the NEW specifications that were being implemented and how everyone would be affected. I'm tempted to go into a whole new story of how to handle major cut backs by customers but I'll save that for another time.

We accomplished what they asked but it was not without a lot of internal budget cuts that we had to make and our bottom line suffered as you could well imagine.

THE LESSON LEARNED HERE?

Just because you have a business plan does not mean it doesn't need to be altered from time to time depending on circumstances. That is not to say whenever you have a whim that you want to do something, you change the business plan. It means you change it only after thorough, intelligent discussion and reviewing the points again of what you do best and why.

We made a change to our business plan that was, AT NO TIME WILL ONE CUSTOMER BE MORE THAN 10% OF OUR TOTAL REVENUE. There were times in our history where taking on a large customer made us hit 12 or 13 percent but that just made us work harder at adding additional business to bring the percentage back in line. I sure slept a lot better through the years knowing that I could lose my biggest customer tomorrow and still have 90% of my revenue.

Now in either of these real life adventures I have relayed, I don't think the devil made us do it. It is important to take away for this blog a couple of important Do's and Don'ts.

DO develop a business plan, review it often and make intelligent changes as the times and economics dictate.

DON'T get caught up in the excitement of being offered an opportunity? that doesn't fit what you do best.

Hope this helps. Don't forget our weekly free tripodcasts at www.tripodcast.com. You can sign up to receive an e-mail each time one is posted. As the BSCAI convention draws closer we will be going to daily pod casts featuring the speakers and sponsors so be sure and listen for the start date of these interesting tripodcasts.

Till next time.