Jim Blasingame

Business futurist, award-winning author, speaker and columnist

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Coronavirus

The New Regular: When Small Business Brain became COVID Brain

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This is the eighth edition of my New Regular series, which is devoted to helping small business owners deal with the financial and emotional damage created by the coronavirus shutdown(s). Normal went MIA around March 15.

Recently on my radio program, one of our many smart Brain Trust members, Jim Schreier, introduced us to a new condition that neuroscientists are studying. Markers of this syndrome include, but are not limited to:

  • Being stressed out
  • Feeling you can’t keep your head above water
  • Trouble sleeping
  • Struggling with decisions about if/when to pivot
  • Worrying that the next decision could bankrupt you

Veteran small business owners will laugh at these, recognizing them as a short list of what they eat for breakfast every morning. Stress? Worry? Struggle? Is that the best you got?

The levels of adversity Main Street operators take in stride every day would kill most civilians (anyone with a regular paycheck). But on top of all the risks and rough edges small business owners learn how to manage, the pandemic-caused, unprecedented, economic shutdown that separated us from customers, frankly, is a new item on our business breakfast menu.

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The New Regular: The Three U’s of the Apocalypse

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This is the seventh edition of my New Regular series, which is devoted to how small businesses have been impacted by the coronavirus shutdown.

In barely more than the lifespan of a housefly, we’ve been extruded through a pandemic wormhole, from a place called normal into a new reality devoid of that concept. Along the way, the orbit of our lives has been altered by the rude gravity of what I call the “Three U’s of the Apocalypse”:

  • an Unprecedented coronavirus pandemic,
  • precipitating an Unprecedented economic shutdown,
  • necessitating Unprecedented direct government assistance.

Regarding that last U, it’s time for a 90-day update, including new rules and offerings.

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The New Regular: Beware The Compounding Effect

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This is the sixth edition of my “New Regular” series. No one’s seen hide nor hair of normal – old or new – since March 15.

Today we start with two quotes. The first is from a certified genius, and the second … not so much.

“Compound interest.”

Reputedly, that was Albert Einstein’s answer to the question, “What’s the most powerful force in the universe?”

And now a maxim coined by your humble correspondent, from years of experience operating a small business.

“When it starts going bad, it all goes bad.” This is not hyperbole or meant to be pessimistic, just sobering.

“The Compounding Effect” is my term for that maxim, and it, too, can be powerful. Except, unlike compound interest, not in a good way.

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The New Regular: Technology at the Speed of Your Humans

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This is the fifth installment of my New Regular series. No one’s seen “Normal” since COVID-19 took it out months ago.

Last week, we covered the concept of business fundamentals being neither Old School nor New School, but rather THE School.

To help restart your business in the New Regular of the post-pandemic economy, let’s continue that theme with two more THE School fundamentals. One is primal and one is, relatively speaking, a new kid on the fundamentals block. But both now as inextricably linked as they are completely different.

First, allow me to introduce two really smart dudes.

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The New Regular: Reboot to the Prime Fundamentals

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This is the fourth edition of my “New Regular” series, focusing on the post-pandemic marketplace. “Normal” curled up in a whimpering, fetal position four months ago.

At last, we’re squeezing through this coronavirus shutdown wormhole as, state-by-state, Americans break out of coronavirus hell to pursue our lives and work.

For many business owners, unlocking their doors to customers for the first time in weeks will feel like a bear digging out of hibernation into a world reset. Emerging into the sunlight, they’re anxious to find familiar – anything that looks like what they left.

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We interrupt this pandemic to bring you a Memorial Day message

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This is my Memorial Day column with a coronavirus pandemic component, which we’ll get to in a minute.

Reasonable people disagree on the exact origins of what is now called Memorial Day. But most accept that the practice of decorating the graves of Americans who died defending their country began in earnest by women of the South during and following the Civil War.

On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, National Commander of the Army of the Republic, was the first to make Memorial Day official. With General Order No. 11, he stated in part that “the 30th day of May 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.”

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