Over the past year I’ve brought a lot of focus to the defunct and failing IT shops, for some reason none of my blogging friends in the SMB space have decided to talk about it. Is this merely a case of beating a dead horse or is there a lesson to be learned from the mistakes others made?

The other day I talked about effort and how lack of it leads to professional failure. Today, let’s talk about side effects of weed:

“apathy, loss of effectiveness, and a diminished capacity or willingness to carry out complex long-term plans, endure frustration, concentrate for long periods, follow routines, or successfully master new material.  Verbal facility is often impaired both in speaking and writing.

“Such individuals exhibit greater introversion, become totally involved with the present at the expense of future goals and demonstrate a strong tendency toward regressive, childlike, magical thinking.”

While the amotivational syndrome above is widely associated as a collection of symptoms associated with marijuana use, it is strikingly similar to the small business IT providers that are no longer with us. Namely:

1. “Choosing” to stay small – An organization that is not designed from the ground up to seek out new clients is only waiting for it’s current clients to disappear leading to #2:
2. Inability to build a diversified company – The side affect of not wanting to grow a company means your client base is constrained either financially (ex: really small businesses) or vertically (ex: only focusing on car dealers) which creates a business that is overexposed to any radical market changes leading to #3
3. Unwillingness to change -  Businesses that are stuck in their solutions have no motivation to explore other solutions, or solutions that dramatically challenge the status quo (ex: cloud services) leading to #4
4. False sense of security – Without challenge, business owners that are not constantly growing and evaluating their situation are no longer true trusted advisors – they are gatekeepers. Sayings like “my customers will not pay for that” or “my customers will never do this” are clear indications that your business is no longer that of someone that runs an advisory service business but just taking orders.
5. Death: “Thank you for the years of business loyalty” or “We are currently only doing onsite business between 11 AM and Noon to control costs” (meaning: I got a job and can only handle emergencies during lunch for some extra cash) or “We are not taking on any new clients” or…

This is nothing new to any serious business owner. However, it is important to recognize these warning patterns in our own business so we do not suffer the same fate that so many other businesses have. Namely: if you don’t have strong business fundamentals, you are only relying on the demand and that can only go for so long.

Part of running a solid business is constantly evaluating, adjusting, growing and scaling your offering – not just for your own sake but for the sake of the businesses you service.

P.S. Every day is a learning opportunity. Some of us are lucky enough to have an open relationship with our clients, partners and peers that constantly kick us when we are down because that is the only way to change. This specific point is one of the core disagreements I have with Susan Bradley, who approaches this same topic from the exact opposite side: treat everyone with kindness, respect and swag. While we agree on the tshirts and buttons part, there are times when people that are in our business need to be told they are completely batsh*t insane and that they are in fact not smarter than the thousands of people that have written thousands of books covering the fundamentals. No, you can’t have a four hour workweek. No, you can’t aspire to running a technology business out of your garage. No, you can’t make something out of nothing. And if you’re unwilling to listen to the people that have made the same mistakes you’ve made – and are lucky enough to still be in business to talk about it – you deserve no respect. You know what I want? I want the people that failed in IT business to anonymously email me at vlad@vladville.com and say what their greatest shortcoming was – so that future businesses can see the track record that got us all to this point. There is much to be said for Good to Great, but there is also a ton we can learn by avoiding Ok to Gone.

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