Herman School of Business
When is it time to get out?
I attended a book festival in Baltimore this past weekend and met a lady who exemplifies that people do not know when to get out.
Her husband retired from a good career and decided in retirement to begin an investment newsletter. Assured of his skill set, and full of hopes of enormous financial success, he spent ten years trying before the world collapsed on him. Despite his skill set, he managed to spend all of their savings, then borrowed against the house, and ultimately went completely broke. Too common a mistake for people who just can’t accept the fact that failure isn’t fatal…but refusing to take a loss ends up costing you so much more. In his case it was a fatal heart attack, one month before the scheduled foreclosure sale of his house.
While his wife was left behind, she was left with nothing. Starting over, and now in a transition house for homeless women. Her spirit will help her survive. Her dead husbands pride will take her years to overcome.
You need to get out when the world beyond your direct control tells you to. That means you do all you can control, like spending time, and money and your talent to succeed. When outside forces like rent that is killing you, profits that are not there aren’t coming, when the world just isn’t buying your product or service…in brief…here is a test that sometimes helps: Suppose sales not only hit your goals for the next two years, but then suppose the profits were twice what you expect. I worked with many companies that even if those two things happened, they would still be deep in debt and still be needing bigger growth to ever recover their original investment and the debt they have now loaded up on top of that. When that formula shows you are just wasting time…get out…because failing to get out will just make the hole that much bigger.
HERMANISM # 14
If You Define Success As Giving It Your Best Effort, You Can Be Successful Every Day.
- Posted: 2 October 2007
- Comments: 0
- Category: Business failure
add a comment