When Charles Duhigg published The Power of Habit in 2012, it was an instant best seller and became widely regarded in the psychology and business reading communities. As the title suggests, the book focuses on the science of habits and how we can utilize them to our advantage. I know I’m about 10 years late here, but the book still holds up today as the lessons can be applied to multiple aspects of life and business.

I often find self-help books to jump all over the place, often failing to focus on one main message. Duhigg, on the other hand, does an excellent job of creating a linear flow, as each chapter builds upon each other, allowing the reader to follow along and learn as the book progresses. Below I will outline the major points Duhigg brings up, but I do strongly recommend giving this book a full read. You can order it on Amazon with this link.

How Habits Work

The first part of the book discusses how habits are formed, and how the brain uses a system to create them, for better or worse. He describes “The habit loop”, which is essentialy a cue which triggers an action that is followed by a reward. For instance an alarm clock cues someone to wake up and go to shoer, brush their teeth, and have a coffee without butch though which they are then rewarded by feeling ready to start their day. He uses many different examples of habit loops, and how the brain can turn tasks that can be at first complex to the brain, but get turned into habits as the brain gets more accustomed to the loop.

Changing Habits

After educating the reader on how Habits work. Duhigg goes on to demonstrate how people can effectively change habits if they so desire. The main point is that habits can be changed if you keep the cue and reward the same but change the habit. For instance someone who is trying to stop smoking may be cued by seeing someone else light up a cigarette, they then light and smoke one themselves, and are rewarded from the feeling of destressing from smoking. If someone wanted to change that habit instead of smoking a cigarette they could have a few cups of coffee or a piece of nicotine gum. The cue and rewards are the same, but the action is different. Habits are tough to change at first but the more you get your brin accustomed to the new loop, the change becomes possible.

Keystone Habits

The next lawyer, Duhigg introduces is Keystone Habits. These are the important habits that when changed can have a domino effect on other habits. The example he uses is someone that starts an exercising habit can see other habits begin to form as a result. They might start to eat healthier, do drugs less, and so on. When it comes to business, identifying keystone habits within and organization that can have a major ripple effect on other habits the organization has fallen into is how successful CEOs make change.

Takeaways

This book does an excellent job of explaining how habits can be used effectively, by using tremendous examples from both life experiences and real-world business examples including a dysfunctional hospital, the King’s Cross fire of 1987, and how CEO Paul O’Neil transformed the aluminum producing conglomerate, Alcoa.

Don’t panic! While there is strong evidence that says yes, you can die early due to stress on the job, there are very different kinds of job “stress”. The point of this post is to help identify what causes you the most stress at work and understand what type of stress is the most dangerous.

Stop me if you’ve had this conversation before… you’re meeting up with your old college buddy at happy hour and they ask, “so, how’s work?” You scoff, do a little shrug, and robotically respond “It’s work.”

After a brief awkward pause you remember you should probably ask them the same thing so you return the favor, “What about you?” Your friend let’s out an identical scoff to yours and agrees with your assessment, “It’s work.”

You both then stand their awkwardly and sip your $5 beers in the sticky midtown pub.

No? Just me? Well anyways, I’m sure you’ve complained once or twice to your friends and coworkers about your job. Don’t worry, you’re not going to die because your boss wears too much perfume, or because you office is in Dumbo and you thought it was going to be a remote role, but now it’s “hybrid” and you wouldn’t have crammed into the Upper East Side if you had known that.

Most people do not like their job in this country – it’s a fact. According to a 2018 study, conducted by Morning Consult, just 33% of U.S. employees said they were “very satisfied” with their current job. I’ve had jobs I’ve hated, and I’ve had jobs I’ve hated slightly less. As a business owner I have by far the most stressful decisions to make than I did in any of prior roles. I have days where I love it, and I days where I want to throw my computer out the window. Upon reflection I realized my frustration at former jobs all came down to lack of control.

The jobs I had shortly after graduating Syracuse University with a degree in both Finance & Entrepreneurship, I sat in a cubicle and was monitored constantly for 8 hours per day. I was docked pay if I was late, and may have been scorned once or twice for taking too much time on a lunch break. However, the jobs were quite simple. Add up a few numbers in excel. Copy and paste a few paragraphs. File documents into another file. REAL GROUNBREAKING STUFF. But the job itself was not stressful. Nobody was going home hungry if I missed an email.

Today I am faced with many more difficult and stressful decisions than I was in the cubes. Like, whether or not it’s a good use of my time to keep writing this article. As a business owner, a consultant, and an employer, my decisions don’t just affect my paycheck and life, they affect my clients, my team, and if I had kids probably them too. But I am way happier than I was when I lacked control.

This isn’t a pitch to leave corporate America and start your own business. Just because you’re not a CEO or a manager doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have control over how you do your job. As long as your are completing the duties asked of you professionally, you should be treated like the adult you are. On the other hand, if you are a manager you might want to think about how much you tend to micromanage and the damage it can do to your business in the long run, because there has been statistical evidence that one’s degree of control in their job has a correlation with an increase in chances of getting a heart attack, or dying due to other early onset health conditions.

In his book Naked Statistics, Charles Wheelan cites a famous British study known as the Whitehall Studies that followed 17,530 civil servants over the course of 7.5 years. They were able to make a distinction of those with “low job control” by asking questions like “can you decide when to take a break?” or “Do you have a choice in deciding how to do your job?”. After years of research and subsequent studies, they were able to find a strong correlation between having a low degree of control in your job and dying from coronary heart disease.

While the Whitehall studies were conducted more than 50 years ago, the underlying message has been supported by subsequent studies. The bottom line is that while all types of job can be stressful in their own regard what really eats at peoples psyche is not feeling like they have any control or say in how they lived their life.

Therefore, I find it very important whether you are an entry level worker or a CEO, giving people as much flexibility as you can when it comes to getting the job done is how successful companies operate. What do you think?

I often see business blogs that recommend “top banks” and other financial products for small businesses. Having worked at a bank, and now being a a small business owner, I have come to notice that most of these blogs either fail to recognize which factors are most important to small business owners, or they’re simply paid by sponsors. I mean, they can’t possibly believe that Axos is the best bank for small business owners. But not to worry I am here to the rescue! This post is an unbiased, unsponsored account of which factors you should consider when selecting the right bank for your small business. Hopefully you can take some ideas away, make your own decision and not fall victim to targeted ads that don’t actually have your best interests in mind. Also, you don’t have to be limited to just one bank! It is good to utilize multiple banks so that all of your precious eggs are not in one basket.

1. Accessibility

Even in today’s day and age with virtual banking, it is important to do business with a bank that has real people and has plenty of accessible branches and ATMs in the area where you conduct business. For instance, I work in NYC where there is a Chase on every corner. That makes it convenient for me to pop in to see a banker, or utilize an ATM without having to pay a fee. However, there are plenty of states where Chase does not operate in. Of course, even if I am in NYC but I do a lot of business in Pennsylvania where Chase does not operate, it might not be my best option.

2. Fees/Balance Requirements

Many banks will advertise that they don’t charge any “common banking” fees such as monthly service, checks, wires, and so on. However, for most banks these fees ARE free ONLY IF you maintain a certain minimum balance. Be wary of advertisements from banks that claim to not charge any fees, when they might require you to retain a balance that is beyond your capacity and you’ll wind up paying them.

3. Saving Options

Depending on your business’ cash flow you may be sitting on a idle cash for short periods of time that you can’t put into investments, so it just sits in your bank account. Banks offer different interest rates and some are much more competitive. CDs are a thing of the past as I have yet to see one in the last decade to offer a sensible rate worth locking up your money. Today, there are some banks that offer over 1% APY, which is well higher than most big banks offer (usually in the ball park of 0.4%).

4. Borrowing Options

Whether it’s a Credit Card, a Line of Credit, or a Small Business Loan, it’s easier to borrow if you have a relationship and banking history from the lender. For instance if I have a my checking and savings at Local Bank. They will see how much money I bring in over the course of the time I do business with them. If I talk to my bankers there about my business and they get to know how it functions, when it comes time to borrow money, it is easier to articulate and prove why the bank should loan money to my business at a reasonable rate. It would be much more difficult to walk into a bank without any knowledge of me or my business and ask for a sizeable loan. When considering a bank you want to make sure they have multiple products with real people behind them.

The other day I was scrolling through my Instagram feed and noticed a post from an “investor-influencer” account. It read, “Hustling my way up the corporate ladder made me my first $100K, working in tech was my first $1M, building a real estate portfolio made me my first $10M, investing in crypto will get me to $100M, don’t doubt what hard work and consistency do.”

There’s a lot to unpack here. While there was probably no malicious intent, the ripple effect this “influence” could have, may lead to serious repercussions for the young audience consuming it down the road.

The post was made by Richard Garcia, an influencer with more than 315,000 followers on Instagram. He appears to be a successful business man and investor. According to his website, Garcia began his career working in finance, then moved to tech where he worked for notable companies like Google and Tesla. He also claims to have a real-estate portfolio of $8M (just 20% off from what he said on his Instagram post). Richard, if you’re reading this I believe you worked very hard to make it as far as you and I mean no disrespect, but I do caution against posts like these, because they can be very easy to misinterpret the actual hard work you put in to arrive at your success.

What jumped out to me immediately, as I’m sure it did for most of you, is that the post appeared to start off as a realistic tale of personal and wealth growth, but then it suddenly takes a sharp turn down a road built on the hopeful need of perpetual rising crypto prices. Taking $10M and turning it into $100M is quite the return on investment (ROI), and it accounts for 90% of the wealth created by Richard’s “hard work and consistency” theory.

While it’s plausible for certain cryptocurrencies to eventually be worth 10x their current prices, that ROI requires the least amount of effort compared to all of the other activities Richard listed. In fact, making an investment in crypto (with no research) doesn’t require any work, just money. Therefore, someone reading this post could say, ‘well if I can just skip to the investing part and I can get a 10x ROI, I can just skip the hard parts of Richard’s journey and still make a lot of money.’ However, those steps were important for Richard’s development, as they provided him with the capital to invest, as well as his business/investing knowledge and experience.

This is not an anti-crypto post. As a matter of fact, I do believe that cryptocurrencies (in one form or another ) will indeed be the future of monetary transactions across the globe. However, it is impossible for anyone right now to be sure as to what that one form (or another) will be. Maybe it’s Bitcoin or Ethereum that eventually become a universal dollar, or maybe it’s something that hasn’t even been invented yet. The upside for investing in the potential future of the global economy has brilliantly high ceiling, however, unlike investing in a blue-chip stock, it comes with a pitiless downside risk. The dangerous “Crypto-is-the-future-no-ifs-ands-or-buts” attitude can lead to something very similar to what most Gen-Zers are too young to remember: the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.

Richard is not a Gen-Zer, he’s a millennial like me, but I’m sure a large portion of his following are younger. If you are younger than me or Richard, or you want a good old reminder of what happened, I’ll give you a very brief history of what caused the The Global Financial Crisis of 2008:

In the early to mid-2000’s, following the economic resurgence from the dot com bubble (we’ll talk about that another time), house prices were rising exponentially year after year. If you bought a house in 2002 for $300,000, you could have sold it in 2005 for $700,000 (these aren’t actual numbers or percentages but it’s about the concept). Even if you didn’t have $300,000 or any potential to make that, a bank would happily lend it to you (even if you had terrible credit). Millions of people took out these loans known as adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) with the notion that, although they wouldn’t be able to pay it back if they kept the house forever, they could sell the house within a few years and stand to make a substantial ROI. And they did… until they didn’t.

In order to sell that house for $700,000 there must be a buyer who believes that the price of that same house will continue to rise and be worth $1 million in another few years. But what happened when that sentiment died down and suddenly the buying market wasn’t as bountiful? The person who took out the $300,000 loan got stuck with a house they couldn’t afford, and a bank who wanted their money back. So what happens to banks when most of their customers can’t pay them back? They can’t lend out anymore money. This further accelerated the dwindling amount of home buyers. What a lot of consumers start going bankrupt? They liquidate their other investments (stocks). That’s when the market crashes. While I skipped over a few major details, this brief history lesson is a description of a familiar market phenomenon known as a bubble. Once the vast majority of people were stuck with homes they both couldn’t afford nor sell, the growing bubble of housing prices burst and created a tsunami over the global economy.

Now let’s think back to our friend Richard’s post. Although he may not have meant to say this, his words can be interpreted by a young audience, naïve to bubbles, as ‘hey put your savings into a crypto investment and then one day you’ll be able to sell it for a lot more money and be rich like me (but also work hard)’. This could be true for a certain time period, but what happens when an entire generation too young to remember the effects of the housing bubble all have the same bullish sentiment that they can buy crypto and eventually sell it to someone else for a steep profit in the future? A bubble grows. And what happens to bubbles that grow and grow? They burst. And what happens when bubbles burst? Yup, the tsunami thing.

So let’s take our average Gen-Z investor who sees Richard’s advice and says to themself, “well if I can make 10x on my crypto investment, why would I even subject myself to the struggle of climbing a corporate ladder when I can generate way more wealth by not even working?” Maybe that person passes up on a $100K job opportunity which Richard worked so hard to achieve. Instead, to make that $100k, they take all $10K of their savings from their summer internships and jobs from college and invest in crypto. This act alone has multiple ripple effects on the economy. For starters, it becomes harder for a company like Google or Tesla to hire talented young minds like Richard, because all of a sudden it isn’t worth it for them to take the job. Eventually those company’s begin to incur larger labor costs in order to entice skilled workers to come work for them. Suddenly it becomes way more expensive for Google and Tesla to keep innovating at the same level of profitability, and technological advancements in general begin to slow down. Not only that, but as these major company’s bottom lines begin to fall so do their stock prices. What happens to the older investors in those blue-chip stocks (like ya boi)? Their wealth begins to dwindle as well.

With a declining market, it becomes harder for people even younger than our hypothetical Gen-Z investor to generate that initial $10K of savings. There are fewer stocks for them to invested in, and there are fewer jobs for them to get (because the company has to pay more for the experienced workers, they have less money to pay entry-level positions). Not only that, but the local restaurant owner doesn’t have enough money to offer that kid a waitering job for the summer. All of a sudden when Gen-Z-investor-person looks to sell their crypto assets for $100K, there aren’t any of the buyers that Richard said there would be. No cap. As a result, this investor lost out on creating self-value by passing up on working for an innovative company out of college, AND has lost all of their savings. Now imagine a whole generation of people like this: broke and jobless. What happens to the economy then? Tsunami.

I hope I’m wrong; some of my exes would probably agree that I often am. While I understand the general concept of cryptocurrencies, I am far from an expert. I am also not an economist either (I just read a lot of their books). What I DO have are two eyes and history to refer back to. As I look at these patterns of the past and see posts like Richard’s, I worry that the unleashed Crypto bullish investors of Generation Zed can unknowingly be led down a path to creating a bubble that can burst one day and send the global economy back under water.

Allow me to reiterate that I definitely can be wrong (and so can Richard). That’s why I’m invested in crypto myself. Before you start laughing, let me tell you that it only accounts for roughly 5% of my total investments. If Richard is right and it 10xs, I’ll be pretty happy (and will probably be called a dumb millennial by Gen-Zers (at least I’m no boomer though right?!)). On the contrary, if the whole tsunami thing happens I’m more diversified than the poor Gen-Z kid who sunk all of their savings into it. Who’s laughing then, huh?

The point being: I don’t want to dissuade you from taking risks, but when it comes to investing in new/unpredictable advancements in technology, take any advice (including this) with a massive grain of salt and do your own research before you put your entire financial stability on the line.

That’s right! As you might be able to tell, I’m an avid writer and have enjoyed using The Skyview Scope as my creative outlet while I navigated not just the launch of my own company, but assisting over a dozen business owners as they set out to start their own companies. While, my business is less than a year old, and I am far from an “expert”, during this short time I have encountered many valuable lessons, spoke with successful entrepreneurs, and watched a lot of business movies and TV shows.

Sky’s the Limit: Navigating a Business Launch is a business help book comprised of tips, instructions, things to consider, and cautionary tales to be mindful of when launching a business. It will be available for purchase on Amazon starting March 1st.

Please fill out this form if you would like to pre-order a signed copy!

No payment necessary until the book is available for purchase.

Before I decided to pursue my bachelor’s degree at Syracuse University, I attended a seminar for prospective students. The speaker was none other than, alumnus, Brandon Steiner.

“Consistency over time equals credibility”

Brandon Steiner (the other Brandon) is the creator and former CEO of Steiner Sports, the world’s most recognized sports memorabilia company. He launched in 1987 and has been since recognized as “one of the most innovative figures in the history of sports memorabilia”. If you own an autographed jersey or picture, it probably came from Steiner Sports.

At the seminar I got to know Brandon and he eventually invited me to come visit the Steiner Sport’s headquarters in White Plains the following week. As a young high schooler ready to embark on my collegiate career, Steiner shared with me some valuable advice on keeping my options open as I began my studies, and what to expect at Syracuse.

I kept in contact with him over the years, as I would periodically ask him for career advice. It had been close to three years since we last spoke, but he kindly accepted my invitation to hop on a call with me and discuss how he turned Steiner Sports from a concept into an enterprise.

“You never know when you’re actually ready,” said Steiner.

I asked about his decision to leave his comfortable job at Hyatt Hotels to start his own business. “I wanted to be an entrepreneur since I was ten years old, but when I graduated college, my mother wouldn’t let me go off on my own without getting experience first, and the most important thing I learned was empathy. Once you are able to put yourself in your customers shoes is when you can be ready.”

No matter what your business is, without experience you won’t succeed. You won’t understand the landscape, or even have enough confidence behind yourself to be able to sell to your clients. But, most importantly, if you can’t relate to your clients, and understand their wants and needs, you won’t be able to successfully fulfill them.

“The only thing that matters [when you start a business] is can you understand and develop what your value proposition is.” Your value proposition, explained in your company’s executive summary, is how your business will specifically aim benefit the lives of your customers. “The three most important things in business,” he went on, “are price, quality, and service. You can’t have all three, so you must decide which your primary focus is [and what your secondary focus is], all three work hand in hand, but it’s virtually impossible to achieve all three. Nobody likes to admit their [EXPLETIVE] isn’t the highest quality level, but look at Red Roof and Holiday Inn. They aren’t the highest quality – they’re service companies. You compare them to The Four Seasons, which is pricier, but you get a higher quality experience. A Honda is a price vehicle, they aren’t rolling out the red carpet for you, but you get a good price. If you get a Mercedes, they pick your car up to get service, they give you that extra level of quality and service, enabling them to command a higher price than Honda.”

When developing your brand, it’s important to decide which area you’ll focus on and make your value proposition. Will you be affordable and not focus too much on providing the highest quality product or service, or will you try to provide exceptional customer service and quality and command a higher price?

“If you go out, and try to claim that you’re all three, then you’re delusional. The only company that I’ve seen even come remotely close, and I’ve been looking at this for years and years, is Amazon. They have good prices, quality products, and the service? You can’t argue with that same day delivery,” he laughed, “but even they aren’t totally mastering all three. If you think your company can, then you’re just bull[expletive] yourself.”

I followed up by questioning what his biggest challenge coming out of the gate was, to which he simply said, “cash flow.”

“You can still make money and go out of business. [When starting], I miscalculated and completely winged it. I misunderstood [the logistics of] putting together a bunch of money. But the simple answer is, you have to figure out how to spend a little less than what you take in. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Growth is important but you can’t run out of money.” Don’t run out of money. Got it.

“Pricing was very hard initially. A lot of people have trouble drilling down on cost, and it was very problematic for me for a while. You can’t just sell stuff and hope things work out. You have to have a [complete] idea of what things cost. Obviously, not just the materials of a product, but all the selling efforts that goes into it as well. Pricing is one of the most complicated things in business,” he concluded.

I wrote an article about the difficulties of establishing credibility as a young entrepreneur, so I asked Steiner how he was able to figure his path towards credibility in his early years. “Consistency over time,” he said, “you can’t shortcut it.” While, in my article, I discuss ways that will help you gain credibility, Brandon means here that, ultimately, your credibility will be built upon putting out a consistent product or service that is in line with your value proposition over time.

Getting yourself to buy in and put the most effort behind your work is the easy part, but getting your employees to buy in is where things get a bit more challenging. “You’re better off having one great employee than three [bad] employees. You could write that [EXPLETIVE] down.” I wrote it down, Brandon!

“The things that travel fastest in business are great news and bad news. Consistency over time equals credibility. If you produce work that supersedes your customers expectations right out of the gate, that’s how you establish yourself. You develop a reputation. Every project has to be the biggest project you’ve ever had. Those customers then become word of mouth advertisers for you. Come out of the gate and nail it.”

“It wasn’t like the business went down, the business went out!“

While pricing and establishing credibility are two of the biggest problems new business face, they are inevitable. I was curious to learn what Steiner’s biggest unforeseen challenge was over the course of his time as CEO of Steiner Sports.

“200[8] because of the financial crisis. We lost all of our wholesale accounts, so we had to pivot to online. It wasn’t like the business went down, the business went out. Figuring out the digital landscape was biggest challenge I faced.” Boomers vs. the internet: a tale as old as time.

Although Brandon sold Steiner Sports in 2000 to Omnicom, he remained the CEO until 2019, until Fanatics wagered a hostile take over of the company. “Yeah, it’s not a great story and nobody really gives a [expletive].” Okay then, moving on…

Although he was sad to lose the company that still bears his name, he has been building a new company that “will be better than Steiner.”

In 2019, he founded Collectable Xchange, which in his words will be a “more modern version of EBay.” Right now it is both a store and marketplace for memorabilia of all kinds, and currently has three times more items available than Steiner ever had. Another angle he’s working on is Athlete Direct, where athlete’s can go out and sell their own memorabilia via his online platform.

Steiner and I talked for over a half hour on other aspects of business and his new venture. The rest of the interview will be included in my first business help book, Cash Wheels (working title, but I think it plays.), which I’m aiming to have published by March. In the meantime, take a look at Steiner’s new venture here.

Thanks Brandon! -Brandon

In 2004, Blockbuster Video had over 9,000 stores and employed more than 80,000 people across the world. In 2010, the company famously filed for bankruptcy, and as of 2019, only one single store remains. It’s in Bend, Oregon, if you feel like making a road trip.

Blockbuster’s decline is one of the fastest and most iconic failures of corporate American leadership in modern history. Due to a combination of lack of foresight, greed, and poor customer relations, Blockbuster missed out on continuing to be one of the biggest household names in the world. Their leadership’s attempts to fend off the competition lacked clarity, cohesiveness, and resulted in myriad ways of siphoning off money. And now, today, when I told my mom I was writing an article on Blockbuster, she said, “the video store?”

At its peak, from 1997-2005, the company was led by John Antioco. During his tenure, Antioco led Blockbuster as the main player in the video rental industry. The company was so large that it was even denied a hostile takeover attempt of rival, Hollywood Video, due to restraints from the FTC in 2004. As profit’s began to decline, Carl Icahn, known for being a “corporate raider”, inserted himself into Blockbuster’s board of director after a successful proxy fight. Icahn was instantly at odds with Antioco. He was angry with the CEO’s obscenely large compensation package consisting of $51.6 million per year despite a newfound slump in sales. Icahn was also dismayed by the company’s new campaign which falsely promoted a “no more late fees” policy. In reality, the policy actually charged users the full price of the movie or game if it was not returned in 8 days, but could be cancelled if they returned the product for a smaller fee. Otherwise known as a late fee. Over 40 states filed suit against the company for false advertising to which they settled, agreeing to pay refunds and explain their incoherent policy a bit more coherently.

Continuing off their first failed attempt at combating their decline, Blockbuster launched a campaign called “Total Access”. Through their online platform, customers could rent a movie and receive a new one for free when they returned it to a store. The publicity of the campaign was actually an initial success. Netflix was even threatened enough to the point that CEO, Reed Hastings, offered Antioco a purchase of Blockbuster’s online platform. However, the campaign was a huge financial loss for Blockbuster, as they were losing two dollars on every free movie they gave out. Antioco hoped it would be, what is known as, a loss leader that would attract new subscribers and keep them out of their competition’s hands. Nonetheless, Icahn put an end to the negotiating, refusing to see more profits seep out from Total Access. Antioco was soon forced to resign, but not before receiving more controversial compensation; a severance package consisting of a reported $24.7 million.

Keyes aligned with Icahn in his opposition to Total Access, getting rid of the free movie deal and raising the prices of online DVD rentals. The result was a sharp halt in the massive growth of Blockbuster Online. With their online DVD rental service essentially dead, Keyes did foresee the shift to streaming somewhat, as he acquired Movielink, an online service where customers could download movies from a library of over 6,000 titles, for $6.6 million. However, despite their move to streaming, management was less worried about competition from Netflix, and focused more on Apple and Walmart as their main competitors. They even considered buying CIRCUIT CITY for more than $1 BILLION in 2008. Lol.

The off the mark focus did not combat declining sales, instead it pushed more money out the door, eventually leading the company to file for bankruptcy in 2010, after their inability to pay off their debt from bondholders.

Blockbuster was driving a beautiful vehicle in the early 2000’s but, after hitting a rocky road with a bunch of potholes, failed to see where the damage truly lied. They spent a lot of money trying to keep gasoline away from their competitors, unsure of who they even were, but they failed to realize the smoke coming from their engine. Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but their inability to see the route of their problems and tend to them efficiently is what led to their speedy collapse.

As a business owner, over the course of your journey, like Blockbuster, you will be faced with many bumpy roads and tough weather conditions along the way. That is why it is important to constantly asses your vehicle’s performance, and make sure that it is healthy and driving smoothly. Consistently ask yourself who your main competitors are, what they are doing, what the trends in your industry are, and of course, don’t make a campaign called “no more late fees” and then charge your customers late fees. They won’t like that and will probably sue you.

Also don’t try to buy a company like Circuit City.

Scaling up is a natural stage in all successful business life cycles, but the timing and execution, can be the make or break difference in its longevity. Expanding is crucial, exciting, and enticing, but when does it make sense to do it? We’ve all heard the expression, “don’t bite off more than you can chew.” To avoid that, knowing when it’s time is key. Here are some indicators that it could be time to start scaling up your business: 

Demand Fulfillment is Overwhelming

Too much demand is definitely a good problem to have, but making sure your business can keep up with a severe increase is easier said than done. However, if you are going to scale because of demand growth, you want to truly make sure your eyes, or the numbers, are not deceiving you. Maybe it’s just a good month? Maybe you just got a couple of really big orders? If you choose to scale up you want to make sure the increase in demand will have reason to stay once you are ready to invest in the new overhead.

Rise in Missed Opportunities

Sometimes it makes sense to turn down opportunities. Whether it’s because they aren’t a good fit, the job is too expensive, too time consuming, or whatever the reason may be. However, when you start turning down more and more of these opportunities, because the order size is too big for your company to handle, waiting to expand leads to a significant rise in lost opportunity. As a business owner, nobody WANTS to turn down jobs because you are not ready to handle it. Don’t go doubling the size of your company because of one missed opportunity, but if it becomes a common occurrence, then it is time to get the ball rolling.

Inventory Constraints

Lack of warehousing space for inventory can be a real hurdle in sales fulfillment if you are not thinking ahead. Thanks to technology, and companies like amazon that can assist your business with transportation and fulfillment centers, planning ahead for inventory increases is crucial in making sure your business remains on the right trajectory.

Customer Demands

In order to retain customers, it may require you to think about what else you can offer them. Perhaps you can add more products or services that compliment those that you currently offer. Think of it like this: if I have a customer who really likes my hamburgers, and I don’t have any french fries to offer him, or a nice Coke to wash it down with, odds are they’ll go to a more encompassing restaurant. Having a wider array of products and services may seem overwhelming, but it may be a necessity to keep your customer base from walking across the street.