You have no option, stop contemplating and act. Change is required…now!

It amazes me how people procrastinate, refusing to make necessary and appropriate decisions. Its the ultimate act of self destruction, refusing to respond to changing conditions, waiting for ‘something’ to happen, preferring the pain currently being experienced as opposed to doing something to change their business circumstances and conditions.

There are no options, there never are, yet the business owner frequently acts as if he does and either does not act or misses the marks out of fear, denial, or ego.

We all understand the economy is severely damaged. We all understand that this ‘recession’ will take years to recover from. Yet so many are acting as if they have options and can debate or consider or delay doing what they should know they must do…make changes to their operation to absorb the changes occurring in the market place.

The operative issue here is, I believe, many if not all business owners understand this issue, that change has occurred and a response is required if your business is to survive…yet they fail to act.

They pretend, as it is an illusion, that they have options or a choice that they can wait or contemplate or consider what to do and thus not act…now, today.

Here are your marching instructions, pay attention and follow the order:

You have no choice…you must act, failure to act immediately and effectively will result in your demise.

What to do? You claim you do not know, here are your instructions.

a. downsize, reduce payroll, renegotiate leases and everything else you possibly can.

b. recast your operating equation, with reduced overhead, reduced revenue.

c. Tighten up your business systems, or better stated add the business systems you know you should but have failed to do for years.

You must run lean and mean, under total control, as the pie will be smaller and you must now control your expenditures, employee productivity, revenue, everything that results in profitability if operated efficiently.

You must have key indicators , the heart beats and pulse of your business activities so you can track, monitor, and control your business. You must build in performance incentives. You must read, understand and respond to financial reports.

You must review your debt and reduce it anyway you can as the debt load you were handling when your revenues and profitability were high are not the debt load you can handle now that your revenues and profitability are less. Downsizing requires a reduction of debt . Pre-emptive debt workouts are the requirements. This is the biggest issue I see. Business owners are very reluctant to face this problem and slowly starve their business by attempting to honor their debt requirements pretending that they have no choice and must honor their word. This is a noble and worthy objective but if it cannot be done you must make the changes as soon as possible, debt workouts are required not optional. Get over the issues, stop waiting and paying. Perform the debt work outs you require to survive.

You MUST,MUST, MUST do this and more or your survival in the new economy will be short lived. The reason is simple. Your business model is based on previous business conditions, the conditions have changed. If you fail to respond to these changes you will become a statistic and not a good one.

You have no options…You simply must do this. Stop pretending you have options and act.

Doubt kills the warrior. Indecision is self-destructive. Debt is the enemy. Systems are required. Debt workouts are required. Downsizing is required.

You have no options.