Question

Topic: Strategy

Do You Agree Most Small Biz Have No Strategy?

Posted by steve hates you on 1/27/2012 at 9:55 AM ET 250 Points
A link to this article about a failing hardware store getting a boost from local yokels was posted on Facebook. Everyone was all mushy about it. I read it, and thought, why did they let their situation get so bad in the first place?
https://news.yahoo.com/era-big-boxes-day-little-guy-080317993.html

I think if your business is in trouble then it's your own fault for not having a strategy to survive amongst the competition.

Do you think there is anything that can be done about it, or does it all depend on the leadership qualities of the small business owner and their personal initiative to do something about their situation?

(I thought this might be a nice alternative to all the crappy questions about "What should I name my toaster cleaning business?" :)
To continue reading this question and the solution, sign up ... it's free!
SUBSCRIBE
Or, SIGN IN

RESPONSES

  • Posted by CarolBlaha on 1/27/2012 at 10:04 AM Member
    WHen you're right you're right. I have worked with companies that embrace the big box coming into their area. Created niches they don't serve and thrive. Why? They had a strategy.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 1/27/2012 at 6:15 PM Member
    I think that long-term strategic thinking is a luxury for business owners that aren't trying to survive short-term. Also, many small business owners that succeed do so not because they dreamed up a 5-year business plan and followed it. They basically were in the right place at the right time with the right solution. The mistake is thinking that they're smart when they're lucky. And when the right place or right time changes, they're left in the lurch wondering what happened.
  • Posted by mgoodman on 1/27/2012 at 8:59 PM Moderator
    Sometime they DO have a strategy, but they haven't committed it to writing or rigorous thinking. It's something they get intuitively, follow it, and never really think about the fact that they pursued a particular strategy.

    And sometime the amorphous strategy works and sometime it doesn't ... and they may never know if they had a good strategy that was poorly executed, or a bad strategy well executed ... or some other combination.

    I have one client who has been in business 30+ years, and his strategy has always been "survive another month, then do it again (and again)." Only on hindsight has he recognized that it was a strategy. He's just done it month after month for 30+ years. (Business is very successful, BTW, and we've actually reverse-engineered the real strategy that made him successful.)
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 1/27/2012 at 9:05 PM Accepted
    Steve,

    Couplea years ago now, I heard our "now gone out of business" video store was ... er ... going out of business.
    shutting up shop, done. Over.

    Why?

    Because their lease was up and ... because the owner didn't want the hassle of moving all her stock (poor lamb).

    So, I asked when the owner might be in the store and arranged to be there when she was in ... in order to hand to her a full scale, business rescue marketing plan. Free. No strings. My gift.

    Result? She wasn't interested.

    Could not be bothered.

    I asked about her membership list and she said " Four ... maybe six thousand ... something like that."

    She had names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mails, and all these people lived within a mile. She was sitting on a gold mine and could not be bothered to dig, even when I showed her the treasure map, with its big, fat "X" makers the spot and its sign that said "DIG HERE!" and an arrow: a big one.

    This woman put SIX people out of work, lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on inventory that sold for pennies on the dollar, and had no interest at all in serving her customer base. They had a "We're closing!" party which, in the five years that my wife and I had been members was the ONLY mailing we ever received from them.

    The store is now a nail salon.

    Shame.
  • Posted by crisanp on 1/28/2012 at 6:51 AM Member
    i agree with monmark
  • Posted by steve hates you on 1/31/2012 at 10:15 PM Author
    ... and I still don't have a name for my toaster cleaning business!
BACK TO TOP

Post a Comment

Related Discussions

Community Info

Top 25 Experts
(Strategy)