SMB Bailout

This has been on my mind somewhat over the past few days and I am not sure if I’m right or not but here it is: I talk to a lot of you and the most frequent question happens to be: “So, if you were me, what would you do right now?”

Answer is always the same – sell everything you own and mail me a check care of Vlad’s Ferrari Collection Fund.

The reason I’ve never really thought about the real answer is the circumstance under which it is asked: I’ve generally described out business model, shared something that’s keeping the lights on at over ten thousand other places, and instead of the person being excited about it they seem to recognize it requires actual effort and if they wanted to work for money they wouldn’t be running their own business.

Therein lies the ugly differentiator between those thriving and others dying. Work. Some say that only suckers work hard. They fall into two groups: successful people and idiots. Successful people already busted their ass to build something, made a ton of money and now get others to put in insane hours. Idiots, on the other hand, expect success without hard work and probably own more than one infomercial get rich scheme.

If it doesn’t work As Seen On TV, why in the world would you figure it would work in SMB? Don’t hold out hope, nobody is going to bail you out: It’s all up to you.