For the past three years, we have had the gas stations on our route to the beach all scoped out. We knew which towns along the way had the cheapest gas and planned our trips accordingly. This summer, we were surprised to see that the town where we had previously stopped for the cheapest gas was now among the highest and the one that had been the highest was the cheapest. What happened? A new low-cost provider had come to the ‘expensive’ town, driving all the other stations to drop their prices. I am not sure what happened in the previously least expensive town…maybe they just failed to keep up.
What we saw with the gas prices reminded me of what
happens so often in business. Just when we think we have the market all figured out, it changes. This is true for big businesses and small businesses alike. It happened to me in my former company. One time it was a move by a competitor that made us change our plans but more often it was other unexpected events that altered the market landscape and, as a result, our business. We learned the hard way we had to constantly keep our eye on what was going on outside of our business. In one instance, we had generated a marketing strategy for our newly-developed software but put the plan on the shelf because we got too busy with paying customers. By the time we dusted the business plan off 18 months later, the market had changed markedly and we had to start over again with a new strategy. Thankfully we noticed the changes in the industry before we had spent too much money on our original plan otherwise we would have lost a lot more than time (and few hundred dollars). What we experienced is not uncommon. We entrepreneurs get so busy IN our business we don’t have time to work ON our business. And just when we think we have it all figured out, something changes!
In the case of buying gas on our vacation it only cost us a couple dollars more but in our business, how much larger can the risk be when you don’t pay attention to the changes around you and your business?
August 1st, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Or in my case as a cataloger/online retailer, when you have cut costs at every level, have a business plan, annual budget and promises to NOT steer off path…and WHAM… An unexpected postage increase of 22% or $10K per mailing.
No cushion to rely on as we budgeted 5%. So rather than not mail, we reduced our mailing size, selected a lesser paper & reconfigured our size (now a fletter” or Slim Jim. We just went to press…so cross your fingers.
And the beat goes on.
Vicki
warmbiscuit.com
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:56 am
Julie,
Interested in using the image above of your gas station sign on an informative speech I’m doing in a couple of weeks for my Public Speaking class. I need the name of the location of the gas station where this picture was taken for citation purposes. You said you were on the way to the beach, but what town was this Exxon located. Thank You.