Which Way Will You Go?

It seems that there is a great deal of uncertainty on the part of business people today. There are numerous reasons for this, including the impact of higher inflation, its rising costs, higher taxes and maybe even more regulation. The following excerpt was written by a lady named Jacqueline G. back in February to the Editors of the Stansberry Research newsletter, and while you may or may not agree with her thoughts, I believe there is a positive message here for us.

“Many of your readers writing in seem to have the mindset that life needs to come to a complete standstill until interest rates subside. Yeah, 3% was nice. I locked in a refi at slightly more than that.

But I entered college when Reagan was Prez. When he took office, the Prime Lending Rate was something like 22%. My guaranteed student loan rate was 13%! And that was supposed to be a better rate than the bank would have given me. 13%, folks! There was no Amazon yet, and I got gouged like crazy for my college textbooks. A few years later, when hubby and I bought our first house, interest rates were down. That little starter home only cost us 9.5%.

Life didn’t stop back then, and it won’t stop now. People need to work and shop and go to school and buy houses and cars and get married and have babies and start businesses and go to the doctor and on and on. If the media would shut up for five minutes, people might actually go live their lives instead of whining about interest rates. Does the government’s own debt load and the interest on that make a difference now? Of course it does, and you can thank your elected representatives…

Meanwhile, I have a life to live. And I have better things to do than complain about interest rates, which is about as useful as complaining all the time about the weather.”

As I said earlier, you may or may not agree with Jacqueline, but her comments are worth reviewing. What is the message?

First, life moves on, and we all have a choice. Will you move forward or digress? I think it’s also important to remember that in these challenging times, it’s not just about cutting costs. Maybe it’s about boosting efficiencies. I recently had a Client, whose labor costs are off the charts, apologizing for his operation’s labor inefficiencies. If it truly is not his employees’ fault that their labor costs are so high, then it’s his responsibility to work closely with his employees to squeeze more productivity out of the business, either by updating and streamlining activities or possibly automating some tasks.

The point is that we can never wait for these items to fix themselves. While this may, indeed, be a challenging time for our economy, we cannot wait for things to be “just right” to make changes. Go forward and create a game plan for improvement!

Can I assist you with your Success Plan? If so, please contact me.

Let’s take your business to the Next Level!