These are 4 timely Principles that we all need to be heeding in our businesses. There are some turbulent times coming and we need to apply these Principles to all parts of our business if you want to not just survive but thrive when that turbulence comes.
Perry Marshall, one of my favourite Business Strategists, recently wrote:
“Travel light and make hay while the sun shines.”
Last year, I warned about a coming recession. I still believe we’re in for some rocky economic times—nothing catastrophic, yet. But, likely a recession of mild to medium intensity.
Since then, we have the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This has the very real potential to dwarf any concerns of recession and may pose an existential threat to a broad swath of Local Professionals: Lawyers, Counsellors, and (eek!) Web Designers.
Last week, the “Godfather of AI”, Yoshua Bengio, resigned from Google so he could sound the clarion alarm about the threat of AI. He, along with Steve Wozniak (co-founder and creator of the Apple), Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, founder of OpenAI, co-founder of PayPal, etc.), the founder of Pinterest, and some 1,100 other leaders in the field of advanced AI sent an open letter to government calling for a
6-month pause on training AI systems so that proper regulations could be figured out.
In their opening paragraph, they say:
“Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources.”
The letter goes on to say:
“Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks.”
This summer, I expect to see AI systems that take on making websites. Give the AI some basic parameters and it’ll design and write an entire website for you! (It sounds better than it is, but still.) You’ll still need to have important pieces like your strategy, Offers, Client Psychographics, etc. worked out, but the tools are coming that will replace a lot of web developers.
Think I’m sleeping with one eye open?!
You better believe it. The good news—and there is good news—is that those who are acting NOW to position themselves for TOMORROW will live to win the day. (I’ll have a lot more to say about AI in a future issue of The Stack.)
We’ve been working behind-the-scenes for the last few years to rebuild our business from the inside out around those 4 Principles:
- Be Agile.
- Feedback Loops.
- Stay Lean.
- Be Flexible.
How might you apply those to your business?
- If you’re paying rent on leased office space, can you prepare to move to a cheaper location? Sublet some unused office space? Free up office space by adopting a hybrid in-office/remote work model?
- Do you need to make staffing changes? Are you over staffed? Are you staffed with underperformers?
- When’s the last time you looked at ALL your misc. business expenses?
- Are there services you provide that are costing you money? (this warrants a whole write-up in a future issue; you may be surprised)
- Are you taking on those pesky, expensive “Necessary Clients” just to keep the wheels of business turning because you don’t have enough “Best Clients” coming in? (Check out www.gravitystack.ca/best-clients-system/ for more on that.)
- Are there systems that you can reengineer to accomplish more with less (and improve the deliverables for your Clients at the same time)?
- Are there rough spots in your Client Experience that are sabotaging word-of-mouth referrals? When’s the last time you talked to your Clients about what their experience with you is? What problems they need solving?
- Are there changes to the business that you know need to be done but have been putting off? (don’t we all have a list of those?)
- Can you restructure your services and add more value and increase prices? Are there guarantees you can offer to increase your close rate?
- Is it time to incorporate so you can pay way less taxes? (We learned that one a year late!)
