I Will Re-Build My Business – That is My Word.

As I mentioned in my last post, 2013 is going to be year of changes for me.  This is what business is all about, right?  Learning to adapt is the key to continued success.  Sometimes it is a shift in how you sell something…for example, Blockbuster Video.  How many of these stores do you see anymore?  Not many.  I’m not saying that they adapted quick enough to be the dominant force, but they needed to move to Blockbuster On-Demand.  The product is essentially the same but the distribution is different. 

In other businesses, the change is drastic.  Do you have any idea where Circuit City went?  Well, we don’t see that many audio/video stores anymore, do we? And when their business model started falling apart and stopped making money, a bunch of smart business guys got together and re-invented their company…to CarMax.  HUH?  That’s weird.  Do either of the two have any connection?  Not really.  But they saw one opportunity fading while another one appeared and shifted gears 180 degrees.  CarMax is HUGE these days and audio/video centers?  Well, not so much.  Best Buy is still around but much of their income come from services not sales.  Costco is where I get my electronics and big electronics have such little mark-up. 

My point here is that virtually all businesses take major blows at some point.  If something is successful, people WILL try to copy it and move into its space.  That is business. 

And then there are other factors.  Business went head-over-heels when the internet was born.  Novelity and niche shops became obsolete.  People could charge less on the internet due to less overhead.  Fads come and go, too.  I have a friend who in the late 90s opened a Beanie Baby shop and made a KILLING on it…until Beanie Babies were no longer the fad.

And now, here I sit in a niche covered in slime by the “make money online” marketers who juiced the concept of home based business to the point of making it a big scam.  So much so, that companies like Google will punish you for just being in this space.

I suppose I understand it, too.  Believe me, I have plenty to say about Google right now (and I will in later posts) but at the end of the day, I totally understand. 

My job right now is not to focus on what Google has done to me, but rather, FIX IT.  Fix my business.  Re-structure it.  Clean it up.  Focus on what others have not already destroyed.  This is how you succeed in business:  Not complain about what happened, but adapt to what can be. 

I feel confident that I will re-build my business.  (For those Landmark people out there…I say it as my word.) 

cheers…matt