11/1/08

Are You Going to Lead Us Out of this Crisis?

Q. Are you going to be a leader in this crisis or a hopeful tag-a-long follower?

A. Two weeks ago I wrote a short newsletter entitled “Is the Sky Really Falling?” I received over 100 comments about the article, most all were positive. So I’d like to give you my humble (or not so humble depending on how you look at it,) opinion about the recovery process.

All week I have been hearing about layoffs, cut backs and temporary and in some cases permanent closings of plants and service operations. Okay so now the reality seems to be setting in that for the last 24 months or so you haven’t prepared for any serious down turn in your business and now that problem looms large over your operation. You can’t go back but you can go forward, beginning today, right now, no more excuses, and the time has come to act aggressively. No more sitting back and waiting…..become a leader….make it happen….show the world what you are truly made of!

I believe you have two choices:

1. Sit back and take a wait and see posture and hope that SOMEBODY begins the turnaround sooner rather than later. And if you are lucky, it will be sooner and you won’t go out of business before it happens. However in this scenario I ask you, WHO IS “SOMEBODY?” Does somebody have a name? Is it our government? Our lawmakers? The big players in the business world? WHO?
2. Or in the second choice, YOU can be the market maker. This is the time when you should be advertising, you should be pushing your sales departments to get 10 times as aggressive, offer deals you never thought possible to stimulate sales, make purchases that improve your operation. Are you bullish on YOU? Are you bullish on YOUR TEAM? Are you confident that YOU can be a leader in your industry from a small role to a large role? If you answers are NO, then you should revert back to item 1 above and maybe even consider updating your resume.

There are over 700 people that I send this newsletter to weekly. And each and every one of you is capable of leading your company out of this so called mess we are in. The election is 2 days away…..no matter what the results, ask yourselves…..NOW WHAT? What excuses am I going to use now? Am I going to be in category 1 or 2 above?

You really can’t use gas as an excuse as the price of gas in falling rapidly. Thursday night I paid $1.97 a gallon and that’s a far cry from the $4.10+ we all had to endure. I think of all of the negative comments around the world about how high gas prices were going to be our doom and how America was going to be crippled. Guess what folks we survived and continue to survive. We as individuals acted and reacted and we prevailed, which is the way it is suppose to be.

SOMEBODY is making changes or the gas wouldn’t be coming down. The truckers we speak to are “quietly” busier than ever so that certainly indicates that SOMEBODY has done something different. If the truckers would have thrown in the towel when diesel got so high, where would be today without trucking? It happened because SOMEBODY made a plan and became the leader and changed the process to work for them, their companies and their industry.

Again I ask, what is SOMEBODY’s name? Just think if each of you follows my suggestion, there will be 700+ new plans of attacks beginning now. Next week may I substitute the word SOMEBODY for your name?

Two months left in 2008 and I wish you tremendous success in the race to the finish line. Have a tremendous week.

Regards,
George F. Mancuso
Gman Business Resources, Inc.