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Three intersecting circles with a single spot where they all overlap. The sweet spot. That ideal place where the magic happens! 

For our business, it’s a place we may not often reach, but we aim for it. And sometimes we hit it. When we don’t, we’re like surfers always looking for that perfect wave. 

It’s the trifecta of business building. Those 3 things we all need, working in tandem, to give us the most efficient and profitable business possible.

Getting New Customers

This is the first because until we have customers…we don’t have a business. Some companies raise millions of dollars before ever getting a customer. Some companies aren’t able to get enough new customers to even warrant staying alive. 

Customer or client acquisition is a hurdle that can stymie the best of us. We quantify it by attaching a cost to it. How much does it cost us to acquire a single customer? It’s important to calculate, but more importantly, we have to be able to land clients. Some companies find out the hard way that they’re unable to land a customer…at any cost! According to CB Insights, 42% of startups fail because there is no market need. Quite simply, nobody wants what they’re selling. It’s the number reason for startup failure, pointing to why I’ve always listed “getting new customers” as number 1 of the trifecta. 

Every seasoned business owner or leaders knows that what may have attracted customers in the past…eventually stops working. Or it stops working as well. Yet we all get stuck in the actions we take to acquire new customers. For example, according to Magna, the research arm of media buying firm IPG Mediabrands, just last year (2017) digital advertising exceeded TV advertising on a worldwide basis. In 2017 digital advertising accounted for 41% of the market at $209B with TV accounting for 35% at $178B. The stunning reality is that you can look at your own media consumption and quickly figure out that there is a disproportionate number of people avoiding TV advertising (fast forwarding their DVR, etc.) than ever before. Yet, marketers are stuck with doing what once worked. To the tune of almost $180 billion annually. Can there be any doubt that TV advertising isn’t nearly as effective as it was a decade ago? Then why are we still spending insane amounts of money there. Because it used to work. So marketers continue to hope it’ll still work.

I’m not picking on advertising. It’s just an easy way to see how very smart business people can behave foolishly by failing to understand the present reality. And it illustrates the need we all have to get new customers! Mostly, it should generate a curiosity and creativity so we find new, better ways to attract the customers we need.

The ocean is no longer blue in some areas. It’s red with blood. We have to make sure it’s not ours.

Serving Existing Customers Better

I’ve been fanatical about this my entire career. Mostly because I’m practical. I know how hard it is to get a customer. And how foolish it is to lose one due to our own neglect. 

Yes, things happen. Customers move away. They die. Their circumstances change to take them out of the market. There are many reasons why we may lose a customer through no fault of our own. 

But…

The exodus of customers caused by our stupidity, neglect and lack of concern is staggering. Every company gives it lip service. I don’t know any of us incapable of talking a big game. We do the same thing about our employees. We brag about how much we care about our people and our customers, when in reality not nearly enough of us truly do. Care. We want to convince ourselves that we really do. But when the spreadsheets open up we quickly trade them both away. Especially when we look out at the next 30-90 days. Our nearsightedness is killing our company. 

How we think determines how we behave. And it determines the choices we make. All our decisions are fueled by what we think. And how.

Years ago while attending a rather informal small gathering assembling to meet and greet GE Chairman Jack Welch, I heard him tell us about the bullet train in Japan. He was showing us the difference in thinking. 

Here’s the problem: how do you build a train that will go 200mph? 

Welch correctly pointed out how American engineers would immediately to go to work on how to make the train go 200mph. They’d be thinking about the type of locomotive necessary for the chore. 

But in Japan the mindset is different. Perhaps sparked in large part by their history and realization about quality, thanks in large part to Dr. Deming in post-War World II sent to help them rebuild their infrastructure. Welch said the Japanese engineers would think about the bed upon which the track would rest. Not the track itself, but the bed under it. What kind of bed would be required to support a track that could sustain a train, safely, at 200mph? 

Quite a different viewpoint, right?

The difference in thinking long-term…and seeing what really matters. 

Too many business owners don’t seem to fully understand how important existing customers are to their longer-term success. They’re transactional. Make today’s sales number. Nothing else matters. It’s often too much focus on top of the funnel activity. Focused on getting new customers to the exclusion of considering the value of the people who have already said, “Yes.” 

Disregard for existing customers is the fast path to erode the customer base that supports all business. Like the bed under the track of the Japanese bullet train, it’s important. All our success hinges on taking care of existing customers. 

It’s not entirely about serving customers after our initial service either. It’s largely about doing what we say we’ll do and dazzling customers after they agree to buy from us. With social media reviews rampant today, so many businesses are busy either gaming the system or ignoring the feedback. Or trying to figure out ways to suppress negative comments/reviews. How about we just figure out ways to deliver remarkable service and make people happy? How about we just make up our mind that we’re going to walk the talk!

Not Going Crazy In The Process

Business leaders are people, too. 😉 

We can lose our temper and sometimes our minds, too. The pressures of keeping it all together can overwhelm us. Then there’s always that “out of the blue” problem that hits us. Like one of our main leaders resigned suddenly, leaving us to ponder how we’ll possibly fill this gap before they walk out the door. Stuff happens, right? 

This isn’t something any MBA class is going to talk about, but you and me – we know how real it is. It’s the pain of business. The dark side nobody wants to discuss or think about. 

Do you have any business problem that is best handled by ignoring it? Then why do we so often ignore this one. 

Instead, we may go home and want to kick the dog. Or take it out on our family. Or some employee, or a rep who books a meeting with us. 

The pressures of leadership can cause us to react to people (even situations) that have nothing to do with our frustrations. And it’s not just emotions and feelings. 

It’s sometimes the challenge of trying to figure out how to best handle a dilemma or an opportunity. When we think our plate is full, somebody or something happens to dump another gob of hot mess on our plate. And we think, “Today I just can’t get a break.”

Besides, what good is it to get new customers by the boatloads and to serve existing customers great if we’re growing increasingly frustrated and anxious? 

BIG QUESTION: Do you think it’s even possible to hit the trifecta – that sweetest of spots – where we can get all three of these working in tandem? 

That’s where it starts. Too regularly I encounter business owners who doubt it, or just outright don’t believe it. And the weird thing is they don’t think the first two are impossible, but they often think the first two come at the expense of the third. Whenever I’m called in and allowed to take a closer look in order to help them, I nearly always find that the first two aren’t quite happening as well as they thought – or would like! 

What we believe limits or enables our possibilities. You know this because you believed in going into business. Something gave you the confidence (the belief) that you could succeed. And you did. 

This is no different. You’ve just become stuck. We all do. Which is why we have to be jolted to think differently. To expand our possibilities. It’s not easy. Doable, but not easy. We can dig in and devote ourselves to trying to figure it out for ourselves. Or, we can surround ourselves with some folks who can help us. No matter how, we have to do it because the trifecta is worth fighting for and figuring out. I want to be at least one person urging you on in the task. You can do this. You can hit the trifecta of business building success. 

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Hank Williams wrote the song in 1949 due to the troubled marriage he had. It’s a sad refrain and I suspect it grew popular (even though it was a B-side record, meaning it wasn’t intended to be the song it became) because it’s such a universal feeling. Loneliness. 

In recent years more and more research is being done on the high cost of starting and owning a business. Entrepreneurship is the sexy term for it, but it’s deceptive. It’s often anything but sexy or appealing. Notions of grandeur, fierce independence, never being told what to do, or how to do it give way to realizing we’ve willingly stepped into a slavery from which we can’t escape. We can’t quit. We can quit a job, but we can’t quit our business. Many business owners suffer a loneliness of being trapped.

The mental and emotional health of business owners is critical because, without it, everything falters. Our personal lives are impacted. Our business is certainly impacted. 

Just this morning I saw a young lady post a long message on Instagram explaining her two-week absence from social media. Not because she was off doing something awesome, but because she suffers clinical depression. She’s been struggling for weeks. It sparked my memory of so many people I’ve seen over the last 20 years or so of life with the Internet (no, I’m not about to go slamming the Internet or longing for the “good ol days”). We just have a vehicle that enables our deception. We can portray ourselves as something we’re not. 

Over a decade ago an Internet marketer who appeared to be knocking it out of the park (big cars, fancy homes, extraordinary lifestyle) went dark. Turns out his life was completely fabricated. And he was a wreck. He’d built his business and life on lies and the chickens came home to roost. That story has been repeated often as we’re tempted to show off to each other. But the business owner has a unique challenge. She’s built a business – one that may be filled with people – where she must appear strong, for the sake of the enterprise. She can’t go dark. She can’t retreat. She must grin and bear it.

But what if she’s so lonesome she could cry? 

And there are plenty of business owners of every demographic – both age and gender – who are anxious to be able to do the same. We’re surrounded – I’m convinced – by as many (perhaps more) people wanting to cry than those wanting to celebrate. The celebrations are the outliers where life is depicted as being so awesome nobody would be able to stand it if it got any better. 

I’m all for a positive outlook. I’m a proponent of optimism. I’m not in favor of “hanging crepe” (being a downer). However, our reality is often lonely. There are times – perhaps many times – where could use some company to help us. Not somebody to criticize us. Not somebody to second guess us. Not somebody to backseat drive our business. Just somebody with whom we can relate – and somebody who can relate to us. Somebody to help us think it through, encourage us and believe in us. Somebody to hold us accountable in all the best ways. 

Don’t you think you need that?

Let me remind you of how many stories of success are fueled by people of all ilks who confess they had somebody, or a group of somebodies, willing to encourage them, push them and safely help them. People with whom these successful people could be open and vulnerable. People who could be trusted to not abandon them, or violate their trust. 

Consider traditional support groups. Name the issue and there’s a support group for it. From parents of murdered children to men addicted to porn. From marriage woes to diabetes. A group exists to serve that need because there’s power in joining forces with others who are sitting where you now sit. Yes, it has an emotional healing influence, but more importantly, it provides a substance, a solid helpful service where people can improve their lives. It provides help in navigating our lives toward an improved outcome. The goal of each group is to provide members the best opportunity for growth, improvement, and transformation. The discomfort pales in comparison to the value…and eventual comfort of being joined with people capable and willing to help each other.

It’s the stuff of The Peer Advantage by Bula Network. Do you see the value of being surrounded by other business owners willing to invest in themselves so they can elevate their leadership and business performance to new heights? Click here and let’s talk. 

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Last night on CBS’ 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl did a piece on Salesforce about gender pay equality. During the segment, she spoke with Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff who was remarkably candid about his company’s failings. Salesforce employs 30,000 people and generates $10 billion in annual revenue. I’m suspecting that Benioff has access to better data than you do.

Cindy Robbins is the President & Chief People Officer at the company. She approached Benioff with a question, “Do you know we may have a problem with unequal pay in the company?” Benioff scoffed that this wasn’t possible. He remarked how great their culture was and how they were awarded “best place to work.” Said Benioff, “We don’t play shenanigans paying people– paying people unequally. It’s unheard of. It’s crazy.”

Benioff’s conclusions were warranted. He had already been focused on promoting and retaining women at Salesforce. But equal pay had never been audited. So Cindy told Marc that they couldn’t dive in, look under the hood, find a problem, then close the hood after seeing how expensive the repair might be. Benioff declared, “I really felt that there’s no way that this can be true.”

So Ms. Robbins ordered a pay audit, but only after Benioff agreed to fix whatever was found, even before knowing the cost. The audit proved Salesforce had a persistent and widespread gap between what men and women were paid. Benioff and Robbins fixed it. It cost Salesforce $3 million in the first year. 

Benioff knew what he knew. He believed what he believed. He had compelling reasons. He wasn’t merely jaded with optimism about how Salesforce operated. He had founded and led this company to have a culture that had been rewarded with proof of his rightness. But he was wrong. Just another case of a CEO served by the challenges and nudges of another person with a different (and turns out, very important) viewpoint. Kudos to Marc for listening and accepting the challenge to find out — and fix whatever was found. 

As Lesley Stahl spoke to Benioff he remarked how this was now a very important mission for him as a top CEO in global business. He remarked that many CEOs were unwilling to listen to him urging them to do in their companies what he did in Salesforce. Some CEOs said Benioff, completely deny that there is any such disparity between what men and women are paid. They simply refuse to believe it. For some, ignorance is bliss. Dangerous, but stupidly blissful I suppose.

It speaks to how wrong we can sometimes be…even when we’re fully convinced we’re right. 

Except for Google and Amazon, I’m suspecting that Salesforce has no rivals when it comes to technology and the ability to crunch big data. Benioff has access to resources and data to help him make the very best decisions. And he still got it wrong. Because he still had some bias toward his assumptions, even though those assumptions had merit. 

What you don’t know will hurt you. Perhaps badly. And it may be harm from which there is no recovery. 

Business owners and CEO’s are all susceptible to it. No human is immune. Our lives and experiences create a reality that we’re convinced is true. Until somebody nudges us to consider it may not be. And like Ms. Robbins, they’re able to influence us to look deeper into things so we can improve our insight. Two very different people working for the same enterprise. One a founder. One an employee. One a man. One a woman. One convinced he’s already got it right. The other questioning whether it’s all true. The interaction changed everything. Not only for each of them but for their entire company, including the companies acquired by Salesforce. 

What assumptions are you making that could hurt your company? Well, the reality is – you have no way of knowing. Until it’s too late. Or until you surround yourself with other CEO’s willing to help you question them, and willing to help you dive more deeply into them to find out if they’re true or not. Getting outside perspectives, viewpoints and experiences can be far more valuable than anything other resources you may lean on for decision-making. 

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This week Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been appearing before a Senate committee on privacy, data breaches and the ethics of using customer data. 

Volkswagen appointed a new CEO to replace a leader who had the awful task of navigating the company past an emissions scandal in which the company admitted to rigging some 11 million cars worldwide with software to cheat pollution tests. The company paid more than $30 billion in fines for the scandal which broke back in 2015.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman drew some fire this week regarding racism on the platform.

Just another week of the usual leadership news. And we’re just talking about business leadership. 

Morals. Ethics. Doing the right thing. No matter what.

From a safe distance, it seems so easy. Simple even. In hindsight it all seems so…well, stupid. Maybe it was. Maybe it was stupid. Even from the start. But maybe not. Maybe over time it become something more. Growing like a snowball rolling down a steep hill. 

I’m not judging. Nor am I condoning. I don’t subscribe to situational ethics. Right is always right. Wrong is always wrong. Black and white. 

However, life is a big blend of grayscale shades. 

The C-suite should be like any other leadership group, above reproach. But greed happens. Sometimes it’s for money. Sometimes it’s for more power. Sometimes it’s to deal a blow to the competition. It’s almost always easily explained with logic that makes it seem it’s for the good of the business. 

Right is right. Always. 

Confidence and worry are practical factors. Why erode and amplify the other with questionable behavior or decisions? It’s the stuff CEOs need to function at their highest levels. 

But some leaders lack the character to be guided by conscience. So when they behave immorally or unethically, no problem. They’re not bothered in the least. I’m not cynical enough to think that’s typical though. 

More likely are the slides. One compromise, seemingly not such a big deal escalates into a bigger, and bigger deal. And before you know it, we’re knee-deep (or deeper) in a pit we never intended to even get close to. 

CEO’s can be surrounded by people who think decisions for the best financial outcome will resonate with the C-suite. It can lead to people willing to push boundaries knowing they’re not the final decision maker. That distance allows them to feel okay with their suggestion while the #1, the CEO, has to bear the real burden of responsibility and accountability. 

It’s just one more reason why every top-level leader needs people surrounding them willing to challenge, ask hard questions and remain dedicated to a north star of doing what’s right — no matter what! Being an unclothed emperor is a no-win game. It requires insight and perspective to see the values and benefits of every decision — while simultaneously seeing the risks and downsides. 

Any leader willing to shift their standards of what’s right based on financial outcomes, or anything else, is on a slippery slope. I could make arguments for the rightness of it, but let’s keep it business focused. It’s just good business. It’s better business to avoid immoral, unethical and illegal choices. 

Commitment to avoid even entertaining discussions about choices that are clearly “out of bounds” sets the tone of an organization that won’t foster those options. It puts the team in a frame of mind to innovate in ways that are purely in bounds. No matter what. 

What too few may consider is the impact unethical choices have on the entire organization. If the CEO will make a choice in the name of something other than doing what’s right, then at the individual level, so will other members of the team…all the way down the line. Kids mimic parents. Employees mimic their leaders. The fish rots from the head down.

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My generation was raised by the World War II or Korean War generation (I only use that to give context to our parents’ generation). Old school. 

Just the other morning Twitter was somewhat buzzing about a little video clip of Alabama’s football coach, Nick Saban, ripping into a defensive back. We often associate “old school” training with ripping and snorting. We think of Red Foreman, the dad on That 70’s Show. Or maybe we think of Frank Barrone, the dad on Everybody Loves Raymond. Gruff, blunt characters who didn’t tolerate any nonsense, unless it was their own. 

Some years ago during a conversation with a young person seeking some counsel, I found myself saying (for the first time) a truth that I’ve long believed…

I am who I am because of the old men in my life.

Yes, I am who I am because of the old women in my life, too. But in that moment I reflected on the quick moment of accountability provided by old men in my life. The times old men shot me a look, or made some moaning sound, or even hollered at me. Moments of correction that seemed part of my male mainstream consciousness even though I had yet to hear John Lee Hooker’s line from Boom Boom – “a-how-how-how-how.” I remember hearing such guttural utterances like that all my life as a little boy. By 1973 when ZZ Top released the song – La Grange – with similar sounds, it was nothing extraordinary to me. I’d heard the old men in my life use similar sounds to get our attention and make us behave all my life.

Learning to accept instruction and correction has been crucial for me. And thankfully, I’ve not had to learn everything the hard way. 

Fact: We lead people. We manage the work. 

Leadership is about getting things accomplished by serving the people who do the work. It’s about helping them achieve more (faster and better) than they could without your help. No business can scale without solid leadership. Learning to lead is foundational for any business owner intent on growing their business. You’ve got to learn to listen and follow before you can learn to lead.

Every leader was influenced by people who helped them develop their leadership. People taught them things. Showed them things. They observed, watched, paid attention and began to try things. Sometimes they got it right quickly. Other times they didn’t and they had to change and improve. They’ll all tell you they learned by following the counsel, advise and patterns set by people who were leading them. 

Leaders pass it on by helping developing leadership in others. It starts with first being open and available to learn…and follow.

Grow Great is going to be bringing you some brief 20-minute or so conversations with CEO’s, founders and owners. They’ll share how people influenced their leadership and share with us some of the most important leadership lessons they learned. I plan to bring you as many of these conversations as I can, from as many different types of leaders as possible.

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If the market doesn’t hit you in the mouth, then the economy will. You may think Mike Tyson is an idiot, but he did say something very smart.

Everyone has a plan ’til they get punched in the mouth.

Here’s the list of recessions I’ve experienced since I began working:

1. November 1973 to March 1975 (the oil crisis and stock market crash)
2. January 1980 to July 1980 (Federal Reserve raised interest rates dramatically to stave off inflation)
3. July 1981 to November 1982 (inconsistent exported oil and tight money supply)
4. July 1990 to March 1991 (increased inflation, rising interest rates, and lower consumer confidence)
5. March 2001 to November 2001 (the bursting of the dot-com bubble)
6. December 2007 to June 2009 (dubbed “The Great Recession” prompted by the subprime mortgage crisis)

Yes, I remember high-interest rates. I’ve experienced the double-digit mortgage (in the mid-80’s it wasn’t uncommon for people to sell a home, and write a check to the BUYER). Rates soared north of 13%, something anybody under the age of 40 can’t fathom. 

Experience matters. Learning from it matters more!

Being skilled in critical thinking is the ability to take one’s thinking apart systematically, to analyze each piece, assess it for quality (accuracy, validity, etc.) and then improve it. It’s the basis of our decision-making ability. Cognitive science has established certain elements of reasoning: purpose, question, information, inference, assumption, point of view, concepts, and implications. 

Sounds sterile and ideally logical, but there’s emotion sprinkled all over the place. Emotion like feeling stunned…when we get smacked in the mouth. Emotion like feeling disheartened when that punch puts us on our back. Emotion like not wanting to get up when we’re knocked down. Or the emotion of wanting to get back up as quickly as we can to keep on fighting. 

“If you have bananas on a pole, you’ll lose your bananas.”  -Dr. Claud Bramblett, an anthropology professor at the University of Texas in Austin

For more than a decade I’ve heard the story repeated. I didn’t know where it originated until I decided to find out. Here’s an infographic of the story.

Here’s the summary as evidenced by the infographic:

• A group of scientists placed 5 monkeys in a cage and in the middle, a ladder with bananas on the top.
• Every time a monkey went up the ladder, the scientists soaked the rest of the monkeys with cold water.
• After a while, every time a monkey went up the ladder, the others beat up the one on the ladder.
• After some time, no monkey dared to go up the ladder regardless of the temptation.
• Scientists then decided to substitute one of the monkeys. The 1^st thing this new monkey did was to go up the ladder. Immediately the other monkeys beat him up.
• After several beatings, the new member learned not to climb the ladder even though he never knew why.
• A 2^nd monkey was substituted and the same occurred. The 1^st monkey participated in the beating of the 2^nd monkey. A 3^rd monkey was changed and the same was repeated (beating). The 4^th was substituted and the beating was repeated and finally, the 5^th monkey was replaced.
• What was left was a group of 5 monkeys that even though never received a cold shower, continued to beat up any monkey who attempted to climb the ladder.
• If it was possible to ask the monkeys why they would beat up all those who attempted to go up the ladder … I bet you the answer would be … “I don’t know — that’s how things are done around here” Does it sound familiar?
• Don’t miss the opportunity to share this with others as they might be asking themselves why we continue to do what we are doing if there is a different way out there.

Competing For The Future by Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad (1996) seems to be the first citation of such an experiment, but no attribution is given. No experiment is cited. And I couldn’t find any evidence that it’s true. It reminds me of that photograph of wolf pack that gets shared so frequently. It sounds good, but it’s completely false. Fiction. 

According to the website, TruthOrFiction.com —

David Attenborough took the photo in question for the BBC’s “Frozen Planet” Series in 2011. It shows 25 timber wolves hunting bison in Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada. The female alpha wolf led the pack, and the others followed in a single file line to save energy as they made their way through deep snow, according to the environmental website Benvironment.

Wolf packs are typically about half the size of the pack pictured in the photo from 2011. Most packs don’t hunt prey the size of bison (which is 10 times the size of a wolf), but the larger pack is able to. And the wolves walking in a single file line through deep snow is a classic example of how they’re able to use weather conditions to their advantage while hunting prey that’s much larger than them.

Also, the idea that wolves have to be on the lookout for “ambushes” or attacks isn’t true, either. Wolves are at the top of the food chain and have no natural predators. Aside from turf battles with other wolves (which wouldn’t start in an ambush) bears are the only threat to wolves in Canada. Even so, experts say that bears are only able to prey on wolf pups because grown wolves are too fast, swift and clever to get caught by them.

The Fast Company Consultant Debunking Unit took that monkey story to the University of Texas professor and he gave them that terrific quote: “If you have bananas on a pole, you’ll lose your bananas.” 

This doesn’t mean that our assumptions are always spot on. Or that we can’t get it wrong. Truth is, the fact that these (and countless other) stories get widely circulated as fact proves the point. We can deceive ourselves. We can be deceived by others. Our assumptions can lead us to make poor decisions. 

Enter the punch to the mouth. I might edit Mike Tyson’s quote and say that we all have a plan until our assumptions (or our conclusions) get punched in the mouth. 

It’s about leadership. It’s about business.

Every executive makes some assumptions. Those assumptions are the result of inferences we’ve made. 

For example, one I often use is getting cut off in traffic. A person cuts us off and we can say to ourselves, “That guy is a jerk.” That’s our inference. Our assumption is that everybody who cuts us off in traffic is a jerk. 

But we could just as easily choose to have it happen and then say to ourselves, “That guy is panicked for good reason.” Our assumption then might be, everybody who cuts us off has a good reason for needing to get somewhere fast. Maybe they have a family emergency or something of that sort. 

What we do will be based on our view of the situation. It’s no more logical to assume one than the other really. Our emotions help us ascribe whatever meaning to it we want. If we think the driver who cut us off is a jerk we may exhibit road rage. But if we feel empathy for a person who may be rushing to the hospital for a family emergency, then we aren’t remotely tempted to exhibit road rage. 

Today is April 3, 2018 and we’ve been experiencing some prosperity. World-wide. Money is nearly free, and easy (for folks who want to raise money). Interest rates are low. Since The Great Recession we’ve had a pretty good time. It’s not going to last because good times never do. I started today’s show listing the various economic downturns – the punches to the mouth – that I’ve experienced. And I’m old, but I’m not ancient. 😉 

I’ve seen lines for as long as the eye could see to just fill up our car. I’ve had a mortgage with insanely high-interest rates (compared to today). I’ve experienced what the world called, “runaway inflation” where prices soared while incomes didn’t. All these punches to the mouth have shown me – in good times and in bad – that there’s a lot more to it than being lucky or having good timing. 

Back in 2010, the Huffington Post did a piece on big brands born during bad economic times. On the list were brands like GE, IBM, General Motors, Disney, Burger King, Microsoft and Apple. Of course, scads of businesses closed up shop when the going got tough. Sometimes that punch in the mouth knocks you out. That’s not good.

But if you can take the punch, survive it and learn from it…it can be a real advantage. 

For starters, it shows you what you’re made of. We all like to think we know ourselves, but we only kinda sorta do. We think we can take a punch, but there’s no way to know for sure until you get hit. 

I go the gym daily. I see guys half my age lifting insane amounts of weight, building ridiculously sized muscles. Sometimes I’ll look at them and wonder, “If that guy came at me really hard, would I be able to fend him off.” I like to think so, but honestly, I’d likely have to rely on my getaway speed more than anything else. That and my ability to scream like a 13-year-old girl. 😀 

Truth is, we don’t know until it happens. When business is hard – or the economy goes south – we learn some things about ourselves (and our company) that we wouldn’t otherwise learn. 

It’d be great if we learned it in real time, but oftentimes we don’t learn it until it’s over. Sometimes after we’ve been soundly beaten. Defeat is only temporary though if we’re determined to stay in the game. The game of business. Only the novices have yet to fail. Those of us who have lived a bit have all had more than our fair share of defeat and failure. 

Punches to the mouth teach us how to fight better. They don’t merely toughen us, but they teach us how to avoid being hit quite so hard the next time. Duck. Dodge. Perry. Move. 

Knowing when to retreat and when to attack is a vital skill for every business leader. Increasingly, we rely on accurate data. It’s accessible in real-time with speed unlike anything in the past. I’ve spent countless hours pouring over data provided by organizations (like newspaper companies, which used to be the best depositories of consumer behavior). Information that was kept in printed form, or on microfiche (Google that). I’ve got a ton more data accessible via my iPhone than I’ve ever had before. 

Part of our punch to the mouth today may be too much data. We’re getting smacked in the face with so much data it’s hard to make sense of it all. Which is why A.I. (artificial intelligence) is so critical to our future. We have to have help to figure out what it all means. 

But getting hit had value. We don’t look forward to it. We train to avoid it. But until we’re knocked down and dragged out we don’t fully understand the pricetag on achievement and success. We just think we know. 

Outliers abound. The wannabe actress goes to Los Angeles to become a star. On one of the first auditions, she gets a part. Then another. And another. And quickly ascends to the heights she dreamed of. Meanwhile, millions of others are having a very different experience. They’re working hard to bulldoze their way to success. Knocking down walls. Being knocked down. Bleeding. Sweating. Feeling the pain of the struggle. And our quick success actress is experiencing none of that. Yet. She may find her first punch to the mouth catastrophic because she didn’t see it coming. Quick success may not have made her success-ready. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of quick success. Just remember, the punch is coming though. If not now, later. Brace yourself.

So the punch reveals important data about us. It tells us more about ourselves than any success would ever hope to. If success amplifies who we are, then failure (or the punch) shows the real us. The genuine person we really are. And it may not be who or what we want. So we’re armed with an opportunity to respond to the punch by working to become more like the person we want to be. Good to know, right?

And far better to know we can’t yet take a punch than to con ourselves into thinking we can until one day we’re knocked out. 

It also shows us that our business and our career aren’t linear. Nobody has had a hockey stick career curve. Look at everybody’s Linkedin profile and it appears we’ve all just gone up and up and up. I suppose the youngest among us are the only ones who’ve had that kind of a career curve. That’s only because they’ve not yet been in the game long enough to take a punch. 

When your career took a punch, what did you do? If you’re still in the game, you got back up. That may look different for all of us. Maybe the founder who didn’t navigate quickly enough to escape the gravitational pull of failure and crashed the company finds herself going to work as a mid-level executive. Maybe the CEO who raised millions of dollars in VC funding, only to realize that the runway wasn’t long enough (and would frankly never be long enough) pivots into a completely different industry sector. Whatever it looks like…it’s a response to the punch in the mouth. A response that otherwise wouldn’t have happened. 

Learning to fight is part of it. Beating up weak opponents doesn’t make us tougher. But weaker. 

Getting smacked around shows us a thing or two. Important things. Critical things. 

I’ve got more wrinkles than ever before. Working out and proper diet are far more critical to my physical well-being than ever before. The metabolism is much slower. So are my reflexes. 

But it all represents the battles I’ve fought and survived. I may not have thrived during each of them. Nobody does. But I got back up off the pavement. I kept swinging while learning to duck more quickly. Learning to counter punch more effectively. So did you. So did all of us who have experienced tough economic times. 

I’m not a prophet, but it doesn’t take a genius to realize there’s another downturn coming. Are you ready? Are you prepared to be punched in the mouth? Do you know how you’ll respond? If it’s not your first punch, you’ve likely got some ideas. But if you’ve never been hit before, we’re about to learn if you can take a punch or not. And like every downturn, the market makes winners and losers of us all. I hope you win!

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