Think about it, when the economy (i.e., GDP) is off a couple of percentage points from prior year, or unemployment is near 10%, we’re quick to bemoan the terrible business environment. Yet, the fact is that 90+% of folks still have their jobs and spending is 98% of prior year levels overall. It’s clear, in spite of the bankruptcies, foreclosures, inventory adjustments, and reduced big-ticket purchases that many businesses are operating fairly normally. In fact, some niches are booming, and the necessary belt-tightening in many other sectors is fairly modest. Because we become complacent in good times, preferring to let things run comfortably on autopilot, the hands-on leadership required during recessionary times seems like a painful intrusion on our otherwise routine lives. In fact, we know from Scripture that such trials, discipline, and pruning is often used by the Lord to build perseverance, character, and hope, while drawing us closer to God to produce a harvest of righteousness (e.g., Jn 15:1-4, Ro 5:3-5, He 12:11). Think of the travails of Abraham, Job, Joseph, Daniel, and David… and how the Lord blessed and used them due to their faithful perseverance and obedience. Consider the powerful resulting testimonies that honor God and still inspire us today. We have that same opportunity, as these timeless principles are still in operation today in the arena of business. The problem, to paraphrase commentator George Will, is that we’re great creatures of habit, doing the same things over and over, while only occasionally interrupted by an original thought.

First, let’s stop to remind ourselves of a few provocative facts:

• What got you here won’t get you there. Things change, even when we resist, causing a compelling need for us to adjust our offerings, methods, and staff core competencies if we’re to continue to provide a compelling customer value proposition. Necessity is often the mother of invention!

• For the thinking business leader, there are no commodities! It’s easy, especially in a recession to think that lower prices are all that matter and our company’s offerings are indistinguishable from our competitors. Focusing solely on competitors brings sameness, bloody price wars, and a loss of focus on what it takes to thrill customers with truly differentiated goods and services. For example, some might view copper as a commodity, but think about the differing ways it might be used (e.g., Siemens power plants, Carrier air conditioners, U.S. Mint pennies, Ford auto radiators, etc.)… all leading to differentiated selling, packaging and logistical support.

• Now is a great time for fresh thinking and perseverance in relooking at how to best serve customer needs! 50+% of companies on the 2009 Fortune 500 list were launched during a recession or bear market. The prize for companies who do what it takes to survive major economic dips — keeping a highly motivated staff nucleus in place and remaining a visible presence — is being first in line to address expanding customer demand with a sharpened offering when the rebound happens.

• The fundamentals of successful business – identifying customer needs and filling them well – haven’t changed. For those who are feeling beaten down, tired and ‘last generation,’ take note that the age group with the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity over the past decade are 55-64 year-olds! Those who ‘get it’ and regularly engage customers regarding their needs and hopes in any technical or supply niche will routinely uncover breakthrough business ideas!

We must shake ourselves out of our self-justifying tendencies, seeing things through the fixed prism that we’re most comfortable with, if we’re to move ahead and not choke off the good forward-looking ideas of our customers and staff. We so easily become trapped by our own past successes, methods, reputation, and words. Consider stopping, today, to deeply reconsider some of the unquestioned ‘givens’ in your business. Deeply engage your staff, as well as thoughtful and aggressive customers in the process. Take in raw, objective, third-party input along the way as grist for the discussion.

It’s obvious that businesses must continually adapt and reinvent various aspects of themselves (e.g., methods, processes, product lines, key staff, bundling of goods and services to address target customer needs) in order to stay relevant and healthy in a changing marketplace. So what’s changed in your target markets?

Consider how God built His Church. As recounted in “Why Work?” (Nancy & Howard Olsen,M3 Planning, 2006), the Christian faith was birthed and flourished in the marketplace. Jesus, a small town carpenter, recruited His disciples in the marketplace where He also made 122 of His 132 New Testament public appearances. Of His 52 parables, 45 had workplace settings. The gospels were written by workplace professionals. After Pentecost, the explosion of believers happened all over the city. Those working with Paul to reach the Gentiles typically led lives which blended business and ministry. Of the 40 divine interventions recorded in Acts, 39 occurred in the marketplace. When the Jerusalem temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., the early Church moved its ‘center’ to Antioch, a vital merchant trading center. Fast-forwarding to America, our founders coupled faith with work in establishing a free nation “under God.” The subsequent ‘great awakenings’ in our history gained their momentum in the marketplace.

What does this mean for us? Did we really sign up for all of this? It’s certainly far more comfortable to view our vocation as simply a 40-60 hour-per-week job. But artificially dividing life into secular and sacred realms doesn’t square with God’s Word. The Puritans had it right in seeing our vocation broadly as God’s call to social, economic, civil, and church engagement as we serve His purpose, using our God-given talents and opportunities to serve others. Jesus didn’t say “go to church,” but rather He called His people to be the Church and “go out”! But we all have specific areas where we like to hang out and devote our energy, often at the exclusion of other priorities. Whether we’re workaholics, doting parents, “can’t say no” church volunteers, or obsessive hobbyists, we must be careful not to reshape God’s call on our life into a lopsided focus on one or two things while ignoring others. Puritan pastor Richard Baxter said, “Overdoing is the most ordinary way of undoing.” In contrast, ‘diligence’ simply involves a constant, motivated effort to do what God wants, by seeing every responsibility as an assignment from, and for, the Lord… nothing more, and nothing less.

“The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste lead to poverty” Pr 21:5

“…if it is leadership, let him govern diligently” Ro 12:8

What does diligence look like in our lives?

• With God: giving Him the devotion inherent in our relationship… and nothing less.
• With our spouses and families: fulfilling the role in their lives for which we have responsibility before God… and nothing less.
• Stewardship of the company He gives us to operate for Him: providing to it, and those we serve through it, all He asks of us… and nothing less.
• Service to His church: doing all He has gifted and called us to do… and nothing less.

Although it’s tempting to feel overwhelmed by this assignment, remember that diligence means doing what’s expected, not perfection or doing more than what’s expected! Let this thought sink in for a moment. Yes, there are many apparently conflicting demands on our time. We feel pressed on all sides, but there is an answer for every pressure… diligence, that which is expected by God and nothing more. Does this seem too simple, to just do what God asks in each area of our life? Our adversary would certainly like for us to think so. The truth, however, is that simple.

It’s the application that trips us up! This confusion is fueled by a culture that embraces ungodly values. We too often view the investment of our time in terms of how desired returns measure up to the expectations and standards of the world. This sets up a conflict between flesh and Spirit. The flesh, since it can’t survive this life, focuses all its demands and attention on the material world. The Spirit, since it transcends this life, urges focus on eternal things. We live amidst this constant conflict. Life is a battle zone where the war is fought largely through our choices regarding the use of time!

Considering Our Battle Zones

Getting back to our companies and their unique role in our lives, what does God expect of us? The answer of course is “whatever diligence requires”… nothing more, nothing less. “Well,” you might ask, “how does God define diligence for me?” The answer lies in your application of God’s Living Word and what He has revealed to you through prayer, circumstances, and His children. Try this working definition:

Diligence is what we can give to our business after more important priorities are fully serviced and lesser priorities are provided for.

Remember, diligence is also no more than that! To illustrate, let’s assume that God defines vocational diligence for you as normally requiring 45 hours per week. This is the amount of time He requires for you to provide to the business all He asks of you. Since He is the true Owner and Source, He has that right and the responsibility for whatever results flow out of His direction.

Let’s assume, in contrast, that you’re currently spending 90 hours per week on-the-job. What return do you suppose you’re earning for the extra 45 hours? The accurate answer is “nothing”! In fact, there’s a net eternal loss since, in order to work the extra 45 hours, you’ve taken them from other priorities. This is true in spite of the fact that you may appear to be profiting financially from the extra work. Financial profit isn’t the sole measure and, even if it were, we can’t know the results of the untaken alternative path. If we never retrench and delegate more fully to our staff, we’ll never know what might have happened. We can only wonder. Too often, the comfort of our longstanding habits – healthy or not – prevails.

Three recent C12 peer examples are worth mentioning. Each leader testifies that, in spite of reducing the hours spent in their businesses by more than 25% – one due to debilitating illness and two simply by choice – their income stayed the same or grew. What do you imagine they thought in advance of making their decision? What would you think? It’s natural for us to expect it to go the other way! But God and His ways are supernatural!

1. Defining your Dominant Selling Idea (DSI) Our DSI is a unifying, energizing, focusing, trust-building, clutter-removing, lean-value-creating notion – a motivating difference at the moment of the purchase decision – that communicates our #1 position in a ‘desirable specialty’ that’s important to our target customers. That’s a mouthful, but unless we’re able to define our DSI, we won’t be able to ‘attach it’ to our name… a requirement for branding. Our DSI fuses our name to a #1 specialty in the customer’s mind. Remember, our customers must ‘cut through the fog’ of competing suppliers in an instant, hopefully as follows: Industry  Category  Specialty  #1 in Specialty  Our Brand Name

  First, we must articulate our clear ownable specialty. To view us as #1 at something, customers must first relate us to a specialty category, even if we have to invent it! When internal combustion engines became commonplace, Evinrude coined the term ‘outboard motor’ and dominated its growing niche. After airplanes became pervasive, proliferating specialty categories enabled leadership positions to be carved out in jets (vs. propeller-driven), fighter jets (vs. passenger/freight/corporate), supersonic (vs. subsonic), and stealth (vs. radar detectable). Boeing became #1 in the ‘jumbo jet’ category, just as many automakers now hope to be #1 in ‘hybrid cars.’ Within the global auto industry, little Subaru has become #1 in the “SUV Wagon” category and Volvo is branded as “the world’s safest car.”

After defining our clear ownable specialty, we can now develop our DSI. Imagination helps. For example, Rolaids invented the term “Acid Indigestion,’ Hall’s coined “Vapor Action,” and Metamucil renamed flea seed fiber as “100% Natural Psyllium.” To be powerful and memorable, our DSI should be as concise as possible (e.g., M&Ms–Melts in Your Mouth not in Your Hands; Allstate–The Good Hands People).

Ideally, our DSI will possess five ‘selling attributes’:

◊ Superlative – we’re best-in-class at something

◊ Important – that ‘something’ really matters

◊ Believable – there are logical reasons why this is the case

◊ Memorable – an emotional, easy-to-remember, ‘hook’ related to needs and wants

◊ Tangible – real and trusted based on our actual performance

 Once we have a DSI, we can use four vital supporting elements to bring it to life.

2. Your Company or Product Line’s Name When our name accentuates our DSI, we’ve got a powerful one-two punch! A descriptive and memorable name is best. Initials, family surnames, and innocuous labels can, of course, become familiar and meaningful in time (e.g., Toyota, Sears, IBM, etc.), but it’s far better to have a name that’s:

◊ Directly supportive of our DSI

◊ Descriptive, memorable, or evocative

◊ Ownable and protectable

◊ Easy and pleasing to say

Consider these communicative names that seem to have a built-in DSI: DieHard Batteries, Invisible Fence, Home ATM Software, Egg Beaters, Ball Park Franks, Super Bowl. Compare their marketing power to generic names such as Acme, Universal, Smith, etc.

3. Your Tagline This valuable selling tool supports your DSI by clearly ‘promising a difference’ that customers want to buy. Like your name, it will ideally be concise, colorful, evocative and memorable. Here are a few famous ones:

◊ Timex – Takes a Licking and keeps on Ticking

◊ Bounty – The Quicker-Picker-Upper

◊ Prudential – Get a Piece of the Rock

◊ Black Flag Roach Motel – Roaches Check In, but They Don’t Check Out.

◊ Visa – It’s Everywhere You Want to Be

4. Key Visuals While graphic design gives a brand consistency, key visuals demonstrate the performance and proof of your DSI at a glance, demonstrating that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Many are, in effect, instantaneous selling demos. A few examples:

◊ Masterlock – rifle bullet blasting through

◊ Tropicana – an orange with a straw in it

◊ Milk Industry – white milk mustache

◊ Crazy Glue – helmeted guy stuck to football goal crossbar

◊ Michelin Tire – secure smiling baby sitting in tire

5. Making it Real We either perform in such a way to make our DSI real or we don’t. Nothing kills a great brand message faster than poor follow-through.

Strong marketing creates great anticipation that can quickly turn into anger, a sense of betrayal, and a dead brand! Team unity and alignment, consistent with our company’s purpose and values, is essential to success. Assess how customers experience your DSI and evaluate your performance at each ‘touch point’ to ensure each element of the customer experience resonates with your promise.

What have we learned? Brands really matter! They’re accessible to all types and sizes of companies who consistently communicate their Dominant Selling Idea using readily available tools. Finally, they involve leadership focus and teamwork more than money to implement.

Even when done well, it’s never enjoyable to initiate action to sever a relationship. All the training and preparation in the world will fail to make this one of our favorite tasks. Nevertheless, such separations can be managed well and have a far more beneficial impact than we might imagine if we embrace a few basic Biblical principles. 

• Whenever possible, release an employee in person. Look them in the eye and tell them the truth with as much kindness and care as you can. People hate the proverbial impersonal “pink-slip.” It’s cold and demeaning.

• Be willing to discuss the employee’s immediate questions about the situation, not to debate, but to briefly explain and give them a chance to vent a little.

• If possible, have the meeting on Friday as there’s less trauma with Saturday being the first day not having to get up to go to work. Try to avoid forcing the terminated employee to talk to other employees immediately after the meeting. Arrange for a private opportunity for the departing employee to clean out their office, desk or tool cabinet.

•  Be as generous as possible, recognizing your stewardship responsibilities, with separation pay and terms. Depending on circumstances, position, seniority, and proprietary knowledge, do all you can to make finding another position as easy as possible. When in doubt, err on the side of being generous, gracious, helpful and giving.

• When mutual trust and a reasonable planning window exist, allow the departing employee to begin looking for work while still employed, since obtaining a timely new job is typically much easier this way. Although this isn’t always possible, this kindness is easy to appreciate by any of us who have been fired or forced to explain why we were out of work.

•  Unless the termination is the result of ‘cause’ or gross incompetence, provide a helpful referral letter prepared in advance for them to use in future job searches. Be sure to have all relevant paperwork prepared and organized prior to the face-to-face termination meeting (e.g., timetable, benefits transition, 401K rollover, etc.). In some cases, when termination is due to market or strategic changes, you might offer to make industry contacts for them.

•  In the case of a male terminating a female (or vice-versa), or in any potentially charged emotional situation, plan to have a third party present. If you’re in doubt, do it! Discuss the role you wish the second person to play prior to the meeting. This second individual should be selected with the intent of not adding to the stress of the employee being terminated. 

•  When a parting is amiable, or you sense a healthy opportunity to encourage and intercede on behalf of the departing employee, it might be very appropriate to pray with them.

•  In all instances, be sure to act in compliance with all applicable employment law. If you have any doubts, pursue expert counsel before taking action. 

OK, you say, it’s clear in the spiritual realm that the Lord will redeem this recession and every trial for His glory, but why is this relevant? Let’s look at a few principles or ‘lessons learned’:

■■Our witness and impact as servant leaders is most compelling in tough times.The light shines brightest, and is most piercing, in the darkest setting. Our faithful obedience in moving forward and sharing the reason for our hope is never more real than during trials. God is our ultimate provider and security. For Him, there’s truly no recession, only a circumstantial ‘nudge’ which He uses to bring heightened dependence and renewed focus.

■■What truly matters isn’t so much the events or circumstances of life, but our response to them. Scripture repeatedly calls us to faithful diligence. Even when the future seems wildly uncertain, we’re to pray, plan and execute with excellence, as unto the Lord – pursuing wise counsel and trusting God for our well-being.

■■With God’s help any situation can be used for good even when our adversary intends it for evil! It’s darkest just before the dawn. Making tough decisions, or unpleasant transitions in business or life, will nearly always be seen in a different light when we look back months or years later. We usually see God’s providence dimly (if at all) in the here and now, yet we know He is faithful and His love endures. Sometimes, given our tendency to cling to comfortable habits, the Lord provides refining events to force us in a new direction which we learn to appreciate later.

These tumultuous days may be the greatest season of our lives… the most fruitful that we have ever known! It will all depend on how we perceive them. It’s been said that “The circumstances of life don’t make me who I am; they reveal whose I am.”

Light always shines brightest in darkness. This is our time! Brothers and sisters, we were created for this day!

 What does all this mean to you and me in these turbulent times? Like Queen Esther, you and I have been “born for such a time as this.” We have been chosen by our God to be here… now. Further, if we walk with God and trust Him, we will always have all we need to fulfill His purpose, and God is not limited by an economic recession!

 A Refreshing Rundown of the Irrefutable Facts:

√ God is sovereign. Nothing is beyond His span of control! (Jer 23:24, Mt 10:29-31)

√ God has a plan for our lives (Eph 2:10) and that plan deals with the here and now!

√ God will judge our performance (2Cor 5:10)

√ Since He judges us based on whether we do what He asks of us, according to His will, such judgment would be unjust if we don’t have what we need to do it.

√ God is just (Ps 111:7, 2Th 1:6, Rev 15:3)

√ If God is sovereign and just, then He will always give you and I all we need to do all

  God called us and put us here on purpose. He did this not so that we can experience the fleeting pleasures of this world, but as His Ambassadors and containers of His Spirit to bring His light to this dark world. Fear not! for the battle is the Lord’s and He will always be ready, willing, and able – to give us all we need to do all He asks! Press on in faith and in His strength!

First, maintain a forward-looking projection of net cash position by detailing major sources and uses of cash on a rolling basis (e.g., 6-12 months). Smaller businesses should project their cash and P&L at least quarterly and large businesses should do this monthly. These spreadsheets can easily be maintained by your CFO or CPA and help you model ‘what if’ impacts of various assumptions such as sharply reduced orders, slow customer payments, bankruptcy of key customer or supplier, or a tightening of your local bank line of credit. By modeling these scenarios and tracking key liquidity metrics, you can take early action to maintain a solid cash position during a sales slump.

Next, develop the discipline of rank-ordering the contribution margin of every product line, key account or location. When you discover pieces of business with negative contribution margin, either fix them (i.e., more price or less cost) or discontinue them. “Stopping the bleeding” has an immediate pay-off! This is an on-going discipline, involving routine reporting, discussion and remedial action plans, is typically worth a few added points of net profit. If you don’t know your contribution margin, start today to view this data in a key monthly or quarterly analysis and require action to be undertaken to fix any negative items. This will greatly enhance focus and profitability while elevating staff accountability and execution.

Finally, reconsider ‘fixed’ expenses which you’ve budgeted for the current year (e.g., rent, utilities, property taxes, overhead payroll, leases and contracts for maintenance, IT, insurance, equipment, etc.) Constantly look for ways to reduce the fixed cost ‘drag’ on your business by seeking to ‘variable-ize’ and smooth these expenses into even monthly charges which are assigned against the profitability of the product lines or business units that require them. When handled this way, a large portion of your total annual fixed cost will be continually challenged and assigned as period costs to those best able to minimize them.

First, get serious about tracking each sub-category and assign responsibility to gatekeepers with goals to enhance performance by improving the number of ‘days’ of each type of operating capital.

• Meet face-to-face to resolve issues with major slow payers, and revamp your practices such as:
o assign interest charges on past due accounts
o improve your credit approval process for new and existing accounts
o provide incentives for immediate payment, and refine pricing methods

• Issue invoices more quickly and find ways to collect more upfront, perhaps by using credit/debit card processing or instituting progress payments to fund out-of-pocket project commitments.

• Keep supplier payables at conventional 30-60 day levels, even while insisting on improved lead-times, just in time delivery, and impeccable quality to help improve your operating performance.

• Challenge the need for on-hand inventories and operating supplies (beyond what’s needed for this week), and get creative with your suppliers in rethinking re-supply and customer delivery routines.

• Ask suppliers to help with your excess inventory by repurchasing/restocking your surplus items in return for long-term commitments.

• Reassess the amount of floor space required for a tight operation as well as the weekly hours of ‘duty time’ for your fixed assets. Perhaps you can shed fixed cost by subletting surplus space, capacity or expert staff services.