Sharing knowledge and experience with you here
is my way of contributing to this world I call my home.
Do we really need to wait until our world is in imminent danger in order to force us to put our differences aside and start working together to make this world a better place? Not just for the rich, the powerful or the famous but for every man, woman and child on the face of the Earth. We have the ability to do it but do we have the maturity?
Consider what we could potentially accomplish together if everyone shared and worked collaboratively towards a common greater good instead of competing against each other for individual gain. Think of the world as our team. Are we really positioning ourselves to win the game? With almost seven billion people in this world, do you really think you need to bankrupt the competition or your customers in order to gain opportunity? If you believe this, your neighbour might be thinking the exact same thing at this very moment. Shall we explore this idea together for a minute?
So you want to improve sales. You do everything you can in order to stay one step ahead of your competition and in the end, thanks to your cunning sense of business, you outmanoeuvre your competition right out of business. Yay! One less competitor to worry about, right?
Maybe not. Don't your sales actually depend on others having money to spend? We've seen what living on credit can do on a national and even global scale. If you step back and look at this from a different perspective, the people you just put out of business were actually people who spent money, or at least they did while they had a job. You didn't just get rid of your competition did you, you also eliminated money spending consumers. "But they worked for the competition. They weren't my customer!" Maybe not, however they did spent money at clothing stores, grocery stores, they purchased homes, cars, fuel, and consumed a lot of other goods and services. Each time they took a dollar out of their wallet to pay someone, that person made money. If you've really doing well, those are the people who added trailing zeros to your bottom line.
Now if you bought out your competitor, you're probably feeling pretty proud of yourself, possibly even humanitarian, but are thinking that it might be time to trim the fat. Once again employees, otherwise also known as consumers, get laid off reducing your potential customer base. Don't worry, "everyone is doing it so it must be right", no? Get your hands out of your pocket. There's nothing left.
First a few people got laid off. Then a few hundred more. A few thousand followed them and, before you know it, millions of people are out of work… but you got rid of some pretty stiff competition in the process! Wake up and smell the lack of coffee. You can't afford this strategy anymore. You were competitive, you undercut everyone and offered the best value for your buck and you are still losing? There must be a better way and there is. It starts with this:
What worked to get you here isn't going to get you the rest of the way.
The sooner you understand this and find a new strategy, the better off we will all be.
There is a saying that goes something like, if you aren't growing, you are dying. This applies equally to businesses and to people. Keep up your current strategy and by next week, you might be the one going out of business.
Killing off your customers in the process of doing business may be
profitable in the short term but is simply bad for long term business.
If you haven't figured it out by now, you need consumers to keep your businesses afloat. In the above scenario, you didn't just get rid of other businesses, you were getting rid of your customers at the same time. A healthy economy depends on people having money to spend and, if you need to work with your competitors to help them stay afloat, you'll be helping yourself out in the long run.
Avoid the panic and develop a sustainable long term plan for your business. If enough people start to do this, there will be plenty of business to go around for everyone.
If you are even beginning to imagine the raw potential that the people of this world have together, then you can start to understand why I share the information on this blog with you.
Together we grow, individually we will die.
Contact me if you would like to learn how you can focus on developing a healthy sustainable business.
If you would like to contribute to this blog, I offer full attribution for any articles you submit including your name as well as email address and/or a link to your website or blog. Naturally I reserve the right to decide which articles will appear on this blog.
With warmest regards,
Life Coach Michael Milette
Come Discover a Great Life
www.michaelmilette.com
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