My Small Business Lost $30,000 This Week….and Why I’m Still Smiling

A small business' blessing or curse?

As I’ve mentioned before, this blog is really just a reflection of the experiences and feelings I’m having as a small business owner, blogger, imagineer (my word), etc. That’s why today’s blog is as real as it gets, and I hope you can somehow relate to what’s happening to me and my business in a way that will benefit you in your life somehow.  So here goes….

As the owner of a swimming pool company, coming off the most difficult year in our company’s history (in terms of the economy), my business partners and I have been eagerly anticipating 2010 and the fresh start it would bring.

Mother Nature’s Wrath

Such was the case for the first two weeks of January. Sales were awesome. All of the branding and marketing I had been working on over the last 2 years was showing its fruit. Everyone was excited. We were going to have a monster February and 2010 was going to be our year of years……that is….until….the white flakes started falling from the sky in droves. Heck, the word ‘droves’ doesn’t even describe properly the wrath Mother Nature has demonstrated in the past 30 days.

In case you hadn’t noticed, the northeastern portion of the United States has been blasted by snow in the last month. Chances are, Virginia, where I live, will get more snow this month than it has gotten in 100 years. As you can imagine, such meteorological anomalies don’t particular bode well for pool guys. In fact, just this week alone, our business will lose about $30,000.

Ouch!

Now for many of you, $30,000 doesn’t seem like a lot of money. For others it may seem like a ton. But for me, it’s a pretty decent amount. You see, had the weather been good this week, we would have installed 2 swimming pools. But instead, all employees have had to stay home. No work has been done. And those five working days we lost this week are gone. They cannot be retrieved. We cannot add more days to the calendar at the end of the year. Hence, we have lost $30,000….or have we?

One of my best friends also owns a business. It’s a restaurant and he’s been rather depressed this week. His biggest cash days have all been snowed out over the last few weeks. We’ve talked quite a bit about his dilemma, and each time I remind him that he still has the opportunity to take advantage of this ‘off-time’. He can still work ‘on’ his business. In fact, he can take this time to make his business quite a bit of money. No, he might not be able to put cash in the bank this week, but he sure can invest in himself, his company, and his future.

That’s what this article is really all about. It’s about how we deal with setbacks as people and business owners. It’s about how we manage our time when we feel the Gods are against us and nothing is going as per plan.

Because Mother Nature has been kind enough to keep me at home these last two weeks, I want to discuss four areas of my life that have been highly impacted by this respite:

1. Business Blog:

Being home has given me, as well as my 2 business partners, quite a bit of time to write blog articles for this year. Usually, when we’re all busy ‘working’, it’s harder to take the time to produce content. (Actually, I just stay up way too late every night, but we’ll save that for another time.) To give you an example, yesterday a posted a blog on our website that was written by my business partner Jason and it was entitled ‘7 Deadly Sins of Fiberglass Pool Installations’. This blog was about 2000 words long and it’s one of the most thorough ever written on the subject in our industry. The article has already received hundreds of views and I know it will, over time, garner our website major SEO props from the search engines and therefore qualified traffic. You see, when someone takes the time to read a blog article like Jason wrote, they are flat-out serious about buying a fiberglass swimming pool. That’s the type of customer we’re going after as a business and therefore that’s the type of blogs we write. –But my point here is that we now have a multiplicity of blog articles that are built up, just waiting to be published. This will only continue our brand domination(as other companies remain in the stone ages) and gain us further credibility in the swimming pool industry…and more sales to boot.

2. Personal Blog:

As you all know, The Sales Lion is a new blog. I’ve only been doing this since late November of last year. It started off just talking about sales techniques but as the blog has developed, so has my vision of what the blog is all about. I’ve come to realize that what I have to offer others is more than just sales techniques. Sure, sales will always be a part of this blog. But so will SEO, marketing, blogging, small business, motivation, and inspiration. Why? Because they are all interconnected. They all represent my life. And they all are essentially a part of just about everyone that reads the articles found herein. This realization has come to pass because of the time I’ve had to think, ponder, and write these last few weeks. And what’s even better, you, my audience, have responded. Traffic and subscriptions are shooting up every day. I’m getting emails and feedback from names and faces around the globe. This is what blogging is all about. If I can positively affect the lives of others somehow through these writings then mission accomplished. So to this end, much thanks to everyone.

3. Inspiration:

Why is it that business owners tend to receive inspiration and fresh ideas about their businesses when they’re not at work? And why is it that bloggers often find their next topic in the least expected places and out of the blue? The answer, as the great Michael Gerber of The E-Myth would tell us, is because we are no longer working in our business but rather on our business. When a business owner has his nose to the grind, constantly handling the day to day problems of his company, it is often extremely difficult to take a step back and truly see the big picture, identify needs, and brainstorm creative solutions. Personally, the greatest ideas I’ve ever made regarding my company have come to me when I wasn’t at work. This is not just a coincidence, and such has been the case these last few weeks. During this time, I can clearly say that I’ve received inspired ideas more than once in terms of ways to improve my company, my blogs, my family, and my life.

4. Family:

I don’t talk about family a lot on this blog but this is not because it’s not important to me. As a matter of fact, it’s the most sacred part of my life. I have 3 children and an awesome wife. We are expecting our 4^th and final child in June. As a business owner, there were times in the early years when I stunk as a father and husband. I’m not proud of this fact but it’s the truth. I could offer up a million reasons as to why this was but the fact of the matter remains that no matter how much ‘temporal’ success I reach in this life, if I’m a failure at home than I’ve accomplished very little. That is why these past few weeks have been great. I’ve set up my laptop on the kitchen table and had a wife and kids surrounding me the majority of the time. I’ve also had a ton of quality time with each of them, which is why I can say that I feel closer to each today than I did just weeks ago. This is a good feeling. This is what it’s all about.

The End Result

So have I really lost $30,000? I’d say that all depends on how one looks at it, but this much I can say for a certain: The things that I’ve been able to accomplish in these last few weeks at home will have a much more profound impact than $30,000. In fact, the decisions and actions I’ve made during this time will eventually lead to major temporal, spiritual, and financial gains. Their influence cannot be measured and their results have no bounds. And this is why I am happy. This is why I’m smiling as I type these words…..

So what have your experiences been with receiving inspiration? How do you deal with the blows that come your way? As always, I appreciate your comments and look forward to hearing your thoughts.

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