What is your account balance?

It's an interesting time to be a small business owner. The economy remains slow, spending is tight, paying clients are few and far between. And yet, it's times like these where you involuntarily begin to reap what you've sown. You see the investment that you've made in relationships coming back to you (either positively or negatively).

I had a tough conversation with our landlord this morning. I explained that cash flow is tight, and while we've done all the belt-tightening we can we're still looking at a couple of very lean months in the immediate future. I wasn't sure how he was going to take it, but he was more than willing to work out a win-win solution that helps us in the near term, while protecting his interest in the long term. He is a small-business man himself, appreciates the nature of our business and understands the value in keeping us both afloat.

Not surprisingly, I had a similar conversation with my staff. They tell me that they buy into our direction and are willing to make near term sacrifices for the long-term good of both themselves and the company. I am blessed to have a staff that is willing to reduce their pay now, while trying to drum up business for the future. In talking with other small business owners, I realize this is not the norm.

Even some of our clients have gone above and beyond to find opportunities to pay us, strictly to keep us in business. They realize it is in their best interest to have us around when the economy recovers, so they're helping us now.

My takeaway from this is simple - a tough economy really challenges more than your retirement fund. The "return" you get now is dependent on the investment in relationships that you made during the good times. Those whom you invested in are there for you now. Those that you didn't, have already either vanished, or are now calling in their chips.

You can't wait until you are in crisis mode to inspire your employees. You can't suddenly call on a client to help you out, if you've been only a vendor in their eyes. You can't expect a landlord to delay a few months of rent payment if he doesn't even know you by name. The time to do these things are when business is going smoothly.

If life is like a giant bank account, I'm certainly making a lot of withdrawals these days. Thank God I focused on deposits when things were better...

Transitions

I went to my oldest son's graduation at Purdue over the weekend. It's hard to believe that he is already finished with college and is ready to enter his next phase of life. At the ceremony there were no protests, no alternate venues or controversy of any kind. But there was a lot of talk of near term discouragement. Over and over we heard that this was the toughest climate for new graduates to enter the job market since the Great Depression. I have no ideas of percentages, but none of my son's friends have been able to secure jobs as of yet. When companies have the choice of hiring new graduates or people that are currently out of work with 5-7 years experience, why would they choose the "newbie"?

As a dad, I'm trying to encourage him to take a long-term perspective and realize the current economy will not stay so dismal forever. And yet, he's facing the same reality that many companies (including my own Insight2) is facing, in that he has to somehow survive the near term to be there in the long term.

Something we're both learning in this interim phase is the importance of taking a non-traditional approach to the future. He went through numerous university sponsored interviews, taking many of them to the second and third levels. But ultimately to no success. Likewise, I've found that the way I've used to sell business is not effective in this climate. Now that he is out of school, I've been pointing him toward my network trying to surface opportunities. In just a week, I've been able to get him as many interested interviews as he was able to get through the university in a semester. From a business standpoint, I can't sell what I've been selling in the way it used to work. I'm having to really open my eyes to new networks to see where the opportunities lie. And I'm having to adjust what I sell to meet the needs of my new clientele.

This is a tough transition for my son. It's been a tough transition for many US companies. But those that survive it will come out of it with a whole new perspective, a leaner approach and a true appreciation for innovative approaches to doing business... or to finding jobs.