What Does Groundhog Day Have to Do with Your Small Business?

It's the beginning of another new month, and it's Groundhog Day. If the groundhog pops his furry little head out of his hole and sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. If it's overcast and he doesn't see his shadow, spring is around the corner.

How many of you small business owners out there feel like that groundhog? You think that the success or failure of your business is dependent upon environmental factors completely out of your control. If the government brings this tax break in, then you will be profitable. If that competitor sets up a showroom down the street, then your business will suffer financially. When you feel powerless to change your surroundings, you eventually stop popping your head out of your hole altogether. It seems safer (and less likely to induce an ulcer) to keep your eyes focused on the day-to-day tasks that will always eat up all available time if you let them.

It's important, however, to recognize that as a business owner, you do have control over most aspects of your company's strategy and operations. Poking your head out of the hole and looking around at the external environment in which your business operates can help you to predict opportunities and threats before they occur. This allows you to be proactive rather than reactive in facing these challenges.

The movie "Groundhog Day" also has lessons for your small business (although I doubt that the Harvard Business School will incorporate the movie into their curriculum any time soon!). In the movie, Bill Murray awoke each morning to find out that it was still Groundhog Day. He lived through the same day and reacted to the events of the day the same way each time. It was only when he realized that he had to break out of his comfort zone and change his actions that his external environment changed and he was able to move forward.

You may have started the year with the hope and determination that this was the year that your business would reach new heights of success and financial well-being. This was the year that you would have to do your bank deposits with a pillowcase to fit all the money into. The year that the bank called you and asked if you'd like to borrow some more money. Now it's February 2^nd and you wake up every morning realizing that nothing has changed. Your business is still on the same course it's always been on. Your sales are still the same. Your customer base is still the same. The cost of your inputs is still the same. The lack of excitement about going into work is still the same.

And you will be destined to repeat the same results until you actively do something different. Until you change your company's processes and the way it interacts with its environment.

Set aside time to poke your head out of the hole. I know that many of you are rolling your eyes right now, saying "I don't have time to do that." Keep in mind that ultimately, it takes less time to run a sea-worthy ship than to bail out a slowly sinking one. It doesn't matter where you carve out the time. You may choose to stop doing some of your less-productive operational activities. You may choose to get out of bed a half-hour earlier. But you need to find the time to strategize and to plan your business operations for at least the next year.

Start your planning by working on the answers to these questions:

1) who are my competitors?

2) why would customers buy from my competitors rather than from me?

3) what changes are going on right now in my industry that I need to be aware of?

4) how effective is my current tax planning strategy?

5) do I have a plan for extracting profits from my small business?

Once you have made notes on the above questions, revisit your existing business strategy and make sure that it's still consistent with the new environment. If not, make the course corrections needed so that you don't have to relive Groundhog Day every day.