The Tribune

By D’Arcy Rahming

It’s been interesting to have my son back from university, and to have his input into my Judo business. In some ways it’s like a time warp, because five years ago the Judo business was a completely different beast. The economy was just beginning to fail, we had over 600 students and it looked like I would be able to retire early. There were a number of things I was doing correctly, and as the business was growing I had taken on more of a chief executive-type presence.

Then the economy contracted, and we began to lose students. But it did not happen immediately. There were sharp drops which, had I been paying attention, I would have picked up on and moved to do something about them. In truth, I stopped doing the things that had made me successful. I became more hands on and, somehow, I became a firefighter for the business instead of a smoke detector. Eventually, I was fighting so many fires I was almost consumed by them. My son has reminded me of the things we used to do that made us successful. We are now beginning to see the turnaround of a long decline.

I used the analogy of a fire, and your role as smoke detector versus firefighter in your business. In marketing, we always say people buy cures and not prevention. Prevention is so unexciting, particularly if you entered business because you loved it. Let us say you used to bake cakes, and decided to open your own bakery. A number of people probably complimented you on how tasty your cakes are. And they might have even encouraged you to bake. It is natural that the part of the job that you will love is baking cakes. By now you will realise that you can bake the most tasty cakes in the world but, if you do not sell them and take care of your customers, you are guaranteed to be out of business.

You will also realise that some of those customers, often through no fault of their own, may not be able to pay you a dime. So you must continue to build a list of customers that can afford your services. Your smoke detector role is not only to keep the quality of your product high, but also to watch the list like a hawk. When you stop building and taking care of your list, it is only a short period of time before you are closing up shop.

My recommendation to you is to read the book, ‘The e-myth revisited’, by Michael Gerber. The subtitle is ‘Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work, and What to Do About It’. It has some 644 Amazon reviews averaging four-and-a-half stars. So you know it is really good.

The book will help you understand all the facets of the business that you need to concentrate on, and where to be the best smoke detector.

NB: D’Arcy Rahming holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. A lecturer at the College of the Bahamas, Mr Rahming has clients in general insurance, retail, the health and medical fields, sports federations and financial dervices. To receive his marketing newsletter FREE go to http://darcyrahming.com