Every month, this economy throws another surprise at all of us. For all of you, this change in consumer buying is causing you to work harder and market smarter than you’ve ever done previously, and that is a challenge.  It’s tough to constantly try to operate you and your business at peak efficiency, not missing any sales opportunity with customers and constantly thinking about the parts of your business that need to be improved, changed, or abolished, all the while generating cash flow.

One retailer really hit the nail on the head when she told me:  “Panicking is a waste of energy.”  She’s right.  You have to stay focused on making the best use of your financial resources, using your time wisely, and deciding how to pull the best possible customers to your business, all the while understanding that luring them inside your doors is only half the battle.  Getting them to part with their money is the critical part.

This same retailer also came up with the new mantra for this economy:  “Doing OK is the new Great.”  Think about it.  With so many people pulling back on their spending, if you are writing a slight sales decrease or a slight customer count decrease, this is pretty good in some parts of the country.  Writing a small increase in customer count, individual average transaction (IAT), or if your online Internet sales are up, well, that’s a cause for celebration!  Yes, doing OK today is what doing Great used to be.

Focus on looking at your numbers.  You should know your breakeven analysis figure, and be able to analyze whether your customer traffic is down, or whether your customer individual average transaction (IAT) is down.  Now more than ever, you have to know where you stand.  We’re all passionate about our businesses, but this information has to be top-of-mind with all of us, and for too long, it’s been out of our awareness.

The good news is that I am receiving more emails and calls from many of you who are now looking more closely at your own business sales and customer traffic count numbers.  For example, many of you are now saying to me: “I am down 15% in IAT, but only 2% behind in customer count” (or whatever your specific situation is).  This is great!  It’s a little thing, but most of us have been satisfied to carry around an intuitive feeling about whether our customer count and IAT are up or down, but just having a feeling about your numbers is not good enough these days.  You have to know exactly where you are, and where you need to go, especially when it comes to customer traffic and the individual average transaction of customers as compared to last year.  Some of you have even begun your conversations with me by saying: “I knew you were going to ask, so I figured it out.”  That’s fantastic!  Congrats to those of you who are forcing yourself to look closely at your business numbers!

With that being said, there are businesses these days that are being hit hard by this economy, and many businesses are closing, and it’s important to understand something about a business closure.  Closing a business feels like failure, but not all closings are failures of the owner.  It’s not necessarily a failure of the owner when a major change in your marketplace hits a company.  Sometimes, when a major business was contributing the majority of your sales, or when a group of employees (like a group of auto workers in a factory), all are suddenly put out of work, and their spending stops, all of this is not a failure of the owner when a business closes.  Often, the sales revenue of a business and their impact on the success of the business just changes too drastically for business reinvention to occur.  Sometimes, a business just runs out of time to turn things around.

One last point:  Every business is going to have degrees of difficulty during this economy.  It’s important as an owner to not let these tough times wear you out emotionally, wear your down physically, or put you in such a negative mindset that all of your future decision-making is based on fear.  It’s important to still be the visionary for your business, to lead your team of employees with ideas and inspiration and to keep your company focused on moving through the difficulties, not bogging down and wallowing in them.  It’s tough to do, but in all your multiple roles as an owner, providing a positive future-picture for your business can only be done by you!  Only you can be the cheerleader, and no one else!

Guess what?  You don’t have to.  General Motors and their advertising campaign did it for us.

The hottest word in General Motors new vocabulary is officially “Reinvention”.  You can listen to the new 60 second GM ad called GM Reinvention, by clicking on: GM Reinvention

Or you can read it below:

“Let’s be completely honest: No company wants to go through this.

But we’re not witnessing the end of the American car.  We’re witnessing the rebirth of the American car.

General Motors needs to start over, in order to get stronger.

There was a time when eight different brands made sense.

Not anymore.

There was a time when our cost structure could compete worldwide.

Not anymore.

Reinvention is the only way we can fix this.

And fix it we will.

So here’s what the new GM is going to be:

Fewer, stronger brands.

Fewer, stronger models.

Greater efficiencies.  better fuel economy and new technologies. 

Leaner, greener, faster, smarter.

GM is not going out of business.

GM is getting down to business.

Because the only Chapter we’re focused on is Chapter One.”

Let’s be even more honest than this ad’s slick 60 second presentation:  GM told hundreds of independent car dealers that their business dealership model was the way to go.  Hundreds of independent owners trusted in GM’s way of doing business, if they supported their Big Brother car company.   And guess what?  GM’s business model didn’t work, and the company itself would have ceased to be, if we as taxpayers hadn’t sent them cash to stay alive. 

The truth is:  GM’s Reinvention is much less painful than what small business owners nationwide are experiencing.

Some small businesses are figuring out that Reinvention is more than just tweaking a few tactics here and there.  But many are operating just as they did last year, but complaining a lot more.

As one owner told me when she couldn’t get fellow business owners to attend a workshop I conducted in her city:  “I cannot understand our local businesses.  When I pitched your presentation to them, they say things like: “I already know all that” or “I employ a marketing firm and don’t need that” or “I’m too busy”.  These are the same folks that say “How come you’re successful in this town?” or “I’ve tried everything & I can’t get people in my store”… We see lots of envy, frustration, excuses, and so little effort from them.”

Business Reinvention means that you as a business owner must admit that the business model you have been using in the past no longer works.  It also means that you must admit that the answers currently in your head, and the experiences you have gathered over the years of running your business, are not currently fixing the decline in sales and customer traffic you are experiencing.

Here are six lessons in Business Reinvention that every small business owner should recognize from GM and its failure as a major company:

#1:  There is NO franchise in the world that guarantees success!  NOT ONE!  And if you are a business owner in a franchise who blindly trusts and follows the company guidelines verbatim, you do it at your own risk.  All of the independent car dealers who are now out of business because of GM are the living proof of this.  They trusted the business model GM had set up for them, and it no longer works.

#2:  Brand uniformity is not all it’s cracked up to be.  There is no safety in brand uniformity and doing everything exactly the same as other businesses in your industry.  It feels safe, until everyone goes over the cliff at the same time.

#3:  I’ve been telling small business owners for the last 14 years that reinventing your business into a Destination is the most profitable way to operate your business. But in this economy, Reinventing into a Destination and being one-of-a-kind are no longer options.

#4:  It’s time for every small business owner to start learning what you’ve avoided learning.  All business owners know what they aren’t good at doing.  It’s time to address your weaknesses and correct them.  It’s time to quit doing the same things in your business today that didn’t work in your business last month.  Doing the same things only puts off your business reinvention for another day, and frankly, some of you are running out of days.

#5:  No one is going to be coming with any cash to save you and your business IF you don’t reinvent yourself.  Free cash is only for companies like GM.  You are on your own. 

#6:  And remember the words of the GM ad:  “No company wants to go through this.  Reinvention is the only way we can fix this.”

Listen to those words every time that advertisement pops up on your television screen.

Will you learn from GM’s experience and hear it as your wake-up call?