All Change!

“To live is to change, and to change often is to become more perfect.”

Thus said the late Cardinal Newman who I’m told will be canonized next month at the Vatican. What the good cardinal said is something not just for the spiritual life, however, but something just as true in business too.

Allow me to explain.

A year after the death of Cardinal Newman, in 1891, a young man, not yet 30 years old, moved from Philadelphia to Chicago. He wanted to start a business but had only $32 to his name. So he started at the bottom, selling soap. But there were a lot of soap sellers in Chicago back then so he hit upon a gimmick to help his sales. He decided to give away packets of baking powder with every purchase of the soap.  Then he discovered that his customers were more interested in the baking powder than they were in the soap.

So, what did the young man do?

He decided to sell only the baking powder, but also noticed that a free gift alongside the thing you are selling does wonders for overall sales. So he decided to give away packets of chewing gum with the tins of baking powder.

And, then, it happened again. He noticed that the chewing gum was of more interest to his customers than the baking powder. Okay, he thought, let’s try this item as a sales object and set about setting up the manufacture and sale of chewing gum.

Well, if I were to tell you that the young man was called William Wrigley, the rest of the story does not need much by way of amplification, nor indeed does the moral of the tale.

The name Wrigley and chewing gum are synonymous. He built a successful business and made himself a fortune on what was initially a sales gimmick. But he did more than that. He had eyes to see a business opportunity and the ability and the desire to switch gears and products to capitalize upon it.

Take a good look at your own business. Is it thrusting ahead? Is it going places you never imagined? Is it keeping you awake at night in excitement?

If not, well, perhaps you are still – and bored with – selling the soap when you should be hawking the gum for all its worth.

My tongue is in my cheek, but you get the point.

Change and business, and the business of change should be part and parcel of your business set-up and, also, perhaps even more importantly, your business plan.

I write to you from London where change is in the air. The Brexit debate continues apace with little sign of ever ending. It is all about change on a national scale. It is interesting listening to the various pundits on television and radio. Whether pro or anti leaving the European Union they all have one thing in common: they are consistent in their views. Rarely do you get a convinced Brexiteer on the radio one day who the next is proposing something radically opposed to what they have been advocating for months. Because that’s why they are there: everyone, both media producers and consumers, know exactly what they are getting when that individual shows up. To do otherwise would provoke a lot of confused looks and the result would be that viewers and program makers would start to mistrust the ever-changing contributor.

Politics is the same. What if British Prime Minister Boris Johnson turned around tomorrow and said: “Sorry, I have this all wrong, let’s just stay in the EU and make a go of it.” He would not only lose office and his political party but probably be visited by a doctor or two for a check up. The Labour Party’s flip-flopping around the issue of Brexit has done them no favors in the polls. While the Liberal Democrats’ unequivocal support for the EU has helped re-brand a failing political party. And so on…

All this we expect.

In business, however, as Mr. Wrigley, demonstrates the opposite to all this is often true. To change is not only to prosper but often in ways unexpected. An argument could be constructed that it is one of the few areas of human activity that you get paid – sometimes a lot more – by changing your mind.

Here at Mt. Bonnell Advisors we know all about change. We have done it ourselves, whether it be business suppliers, or location, or even Continent, we appreciate that business means movement and not just on the balance sheet.

So why do so many businesses not change? And more worrying still, why do some businesses not adapt and as a result then go under?

Looking at the economy of the United Kingdom is an interesting case study just now. One would expect the economy to be in the doldrums, right? If you listened to some politicians the economy is falling off a large precipice. But then it doesn’t pay to let the facts get in the way of a good slogan, especially a political one.

The UK has the lowest unemployment for 45 years – less than half of that of neighboring France where unemployment rates stubbornly continue at 8.5 per cent.

The numbers employed on the much-criticized “zero-hours” contracts stands at a mere 2.7% of all jobs. I would contend that “zero-hours” suits some better than a contract, but, be that as it may, this is still a small proportion of the workforce.

The high employment of Britons in their national economy also comes at a time when Artificial Intelligence in all its guises has never been more prevalent. Machines can check you in at airports, take your order at a restaurant, and a whole host besides. Yet, people are still finding work while the machines are doing all the humdrum stuff. So much for the much talked of AI take over!  Instead you have an economy where some jobs are disappearing but – and the figures don’t lie – others are constantly being created.

Income inequality is at a 30–year low. And those wages are growing at their fastest rate for over 11 years.

Okay, you get the point: don’t believe the hype! Or as we say in more business -like terms: explore the facts.

Why I’m pointing this out is not to make any comment on the UK’s ongoing – some would say never ending – Brexit debate. Far from it, but what I am pointing to is that all of this economic growth and movement is occurring at a time of unprecedented change. A change that is much talked about, much feared, and depending on where you sit in the debate loathed or welcomed – but what ever you think of it, it is change.

Apply this to your business model. The old business truism is true none the less – to stand still is to die, to adapt and to innovate is to thrive. And, again for that to succeed you need and your business needs to be changing more for as the good cardinal said change “often” so as to be “perfect.”

So unless your current business operation is perfect, start to look upon change as not so much a chore as an opportunity. Provoke it; welcome it!

And if you want to make a radical change, give Mt. Bonnell Advisors a call. We like to help our clients succeed and to do so that often means we help them to change – for the better.