Over-sized garden folly
Sometimes I meet people who do not so much have a business plan as be after just making a fast buck. They try to follow every trend, or start implementing a strategy they just thought up in the middle of the night without thinking it through. The trouble with ideas they have in the middle of the night is that they may well be (well you have guessed it) dreams.
Anyway, there will be some product they can make or get and sell for a few weeks in the summer. It might be a pottery garden feature. “Hey, we can knock up a few of those.” Suppose the weather is poor (again) and no one can work or enjoy their garden? The summer doesn’t last more than a few months. Where is the revenue stream coming from then?
The truth is that we all need a longer term plan to make money. We need to plan our income for all four seasons. If our business is seasonal we need to think well in advance what income we can get in when our core activity is slow.
We all need to change and adapt in our business environment, and adjust our marketing strategies, but we also need to have firm long-term objectives to ensure the continuity of our income and survival.
I didn’t make up the garden ornament story. It was one example of having a “bright idea”; spending money and working hard without considering whether there was a demand and if so, how long that demand would last. Have you heard of any expensive dreams like that?
