Jim Blasingame

Business futurist, award-winning author, speaker and columnist

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In defense of the misunderstood scrooge

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This is Jim’s traditional Christmas column.
 
Some say I’m a scrooge. They might be right.
 
Here are three exhibits (some say excuses) in my defense of this indictment:
 
1. The early part of my career was spent in retail. Retailers know what that job does to your holiday spirit. There’s a syndrome for everything else; why not one for retail survivors? Let’s call it RPTHSS: Retail Post-Traumatic Holiday Shock Syndrome.
 
2. Since I don’t wait until the holidays to give someone a gift, I just don’t get all worked up about holiday giving. Not that the ladies mind getting stuff all year (let’s not lose our heads!).  It’s just that they want me to be giddy about giving at Christmas-time. Giddy? Bah! Humbug!
 
3. As an avowed and devout contrarian it would be antithetical for me to feel obligated to do what everyone else is doing. And if there’s one thing that has become part and parcel of the holiday season, it is obligation. For example:

a. If someone gives my significant other and me a last-minute Christmas gift, “Other” feels obligated to reciprocate. Not me. I’ll do something nice for them in March.
 
b. After the Christmas cards have been sent, if an incoming card is received from someone not on your list, do you rush to get a card out to them? I don’t. Maybe next year. In “The World, According To Ebenezer Blasingame,” giving should be voluntary, not obligatory. In fact, to a scrooge, not reciprocating is endearing. 

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Jim Blasingame’s 2018 Crystal Ball Predictions — and what actually happened

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Here are my 2018 predictions and what actually happened. My prior, 18-year accuracy is 73%.

Tech Stuff

1. Prediction: As a technology platform, blockchain stops being a novelty in 2018.
Actual: Every major corporation and government now has a blockchain strategy.  +1

2. Multi-year prediction: Blockchain will be the next Internet-class disruption.
Actual: Blockchain variations are becoming the future of Digital Trust, and therefore, more disruptive to any analog legacy entities. +1

3. Prediction: As your online activity grows – digital tools, games, social media, IOT, etc. – you’ll become increasingly aware that you are, in fact, the product being sold.
Actual: Surveys show online users are becoming increasingly concerned and discerning of their online behavior, especially social media.  +1 

4. Prediction: Scrutiny of Big Data platforms, like Google, Facebook, Amazon, will increase regarding manipulation, privacy and security.
Actual: Congress, the E.U. and users are investigating behavior of these platforms.  +1

5. Prediction: Bitcoin will not become a stable store of value (see Tulipomania).
Actual: In the past 365 days, Bitcoin peaked at $19,783 on the way to below $4,000 and dropping. +1

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Dispelling the myths of ownership

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Now that the economy is rocking and rolling, you’re increasingly likely to meet a starry-eyed human babbling on about becoming a business owner.

Probing for the object of this person’s entrepreneurial infatuation will precipitate what, where, how and when questions and, finally, the most important question: Why do you want to own a business? Answers to this last question, unfortunately, often produce what I call “The Myths of Small Business Ownership.” Here are the four most prominent ones:

Myth 1: When I’m an owner, I’ll be my own boss.

That’s right; you won’t have an employer telling you what to do. But you’ll trade that one boss for many others: customers, landlords, bankers, the IRS, regulators, even employees.

Modern management is more about inspiring, leading and serving than “bossing.” In a small business, everyone must wear several hats and the dominator management model doesn’t work well in this 21st-century multi-tasking environment.

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Personal service businesses: Think prices, not wages

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Millions of small businesses sell personal services like consulting, website development, or janitorial services, instead of something tangible like a computer or a kumquat.

Unfortunately, pricing a service is not as intuitive as a tangible product. Consequently, service businesses too often don’t charge enough to sustain themselves profitably because of how they think about what they sell to customers.

Don’t make the professionally fatal mistake of comparing what you charge customers to deliver your product — a service — to how much you would expect to make per hour as an employee. Doing so, to paraphrase Mark Twain, is like comparing lightning to a lightning bug. You must think like a business, not an employee. You have to think pricing, not wages. Here’s why:

1. You’re a business now, which means you offer customers a price list, like you would see on a wholesale catalog or a restaurant menu, not a wage list. And you collect revenue, which is what businesses produce to create the gross profit that pays expenses, including the salaries, taxes and benefits of employees — and owners.

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Five year-end steps to take while closing out this year

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Fourteen hundred and forty — the number of minutes in a day. Since we can make more money, arguably the greatest challenge of any small business owner is balancing the demands of the forces that compete for those minutes.

“What is the best use of my time right now?” is the constant management question out here on Main Street. And in no other part of the year are we more time-management challenged than in December. The reason is because it’s the only month in the year where we’re faced with allocating time to two very powerful management imperatives: The tactical focus on closing out the sales year as strongly as possible, while simultaneously taking strategic steps to set the business up for a fast and clean start on January 1.

In his book, Blue Highways, William “Least Heat Moon” Trogden said his Osage Indian grandfather once told him, “Some things don’t have to be remembered, they remember themselves.” It’s a natural law that the year-end sales push doesn’t have to be remembered, it remembers itself. But as we come to the two-minute drill in the fourth quarter of the marketplace game our business plays all year, committing precious time and energy to prepare for what comes next requires the discipline and devotion to remember it ourselves.

There are many areas to focus on this month to help you start the New Year clean and fast. But here are five to get you started.

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When cause-and-effect met humanity

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As the 17th century dawned, cause-and-effect was merging two parallel universes.

In the Old World, a group of Leiden Separatists was making decisions that would put them on a circuitous journey. Meanwhile, in the New World, a manchild named Tisquantum was born to the Patuxet tribe of the Wampanoag Indians.

Both the Separatists and Tisquantum became very important to the future of mankind, but not before their lives would change and intertwine in ways not to be imagined by the inhabitants of either world.

In search of religious freedom, the Separatists crisscrossed Europe and then the Atlantic Ocean. On their odyssey, the Separatists would steel their convictions, which would prove handy in the New World.

Incredibly, first as a hostage and later as an interpreter, Tisquantum crossed the Atlantic six times. On his odyssey, Tisquantum learned Old World languages that, combined with his New World survival skills, would contribute to his rendezvous with destiny. 

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