I understand no one likes to be told what to do. Especially a small business owner who is an entrepreneur, a rugged  individualist, a person willing to commit to his or her vision and to do whatever it takes to win, on their own terms. Defying logic and the odds, taking massive risk and betting it all, willing to buck the odds because they believe in themselves and their vision–these people are a rare breed. They are leaders and definitely not people who like to be told what to do or who respond well when told, “You have no  better options other than this one.” I get it, but really what choice do you have unless you truly believe going down with the ship serves your higher purpose?

I believe a small business owner is a huge risk taker. We can all agree with that. However, I also believe risk must  be assessed on fact and logic, not just emotion. In fact, emotion must be rooted out of the equation or bad decisions will be made. Passion is good but emotion is dangerous as emotion makes no sense in business. After all, emotion defies logic and business decisions must be made on facts and weighed with logic.

You decide for yourself if you have a better choice. Here are the facts and the logic as I see them:

1. The economy has crashed, unemployment is extremely high, real estate is busting, the consumers are changing their spending habits, credit is unavailable…  fear is controlling consumers. All of this added together means your revenues are down, down, down.

2. I believe this is not a short-term bump in the road which will pass quickly, this is a long-term problem that you must adjust to in order to survive and emerge prosperous once again.

3. Change is required–is mandatory–or you will fail. This is the brutal truth.

Amongst many objectives to be achieved in order to survive and emerge, debt that is too high to support is the killer. Debt taken, when revenues were dramatically higher, is totally unaffordable when revenues drop significantly and that is what we are currently experiencing. There are two issues here: First, short-term cash flow squeeze. You cannot support debt service thus default is inevitable. Second, long-term value. The business and its assets may not be worth the debt being carried with sharply reduced revenues. So, what is the point? There is no long-term win. All that remains is death by a thousand cuts as you fight to make inadequate cash flow serve debt service and overhead that are too high, or straight out foreclosure and liquidation by the bank, or bankruptcy, which will cost you the loss of your business and other assets. Worse yet, whichever way your business is terminated, your personal guaranties will continue to wreck havoc until either personal bankruptcy is filed or, you will remain in painful, personal liquidation indefinitely.

On the other hand, you could consider our debt workout strategies with debt forgiveness being the result. Save the business, save your assets, remove the debt from the business and reduce the debt from your personal guaranty to pennies on the dollar. Affordable losses is what we call it.

It’s your call, but really, what better choice do you have?

It seems simple enough to me, here is the path you have all been waiting for, wishing for, a magic wand that can make your debt disappear so you can emerge successful once again, and many say “no thanks”.

Why wouldn’t every small business owner take the cure?  There is no other viable path out.