Internet Magic

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit.

“Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“We’ll see,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses.

“How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“We’ll see,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“We’ll see,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“We’ll see” said the farmer.

This story reminds me about what’s going on with my business right now. We might say that it’s great that we have a big sale, but then the end up not making much money on the project.

Or we bounce a check, but then we pull a full scale change in our sales system, pricing structure and financial system. I might even get rid of the salesman because we can’t afford the high fixed cost associated with him and him not getting the sales to support that higher cost.

What have been some bad things that have turned into something good for you? Or what is a good thing that turned into something bad? I’d love to hear your story.

Have an interesting quote hanging on my wall – “Cut your costs to the bone – stop leaking money, you many need it!”

I read recently that businesses have started to see more profits lately and one of the reasons this has come about was because companies have been cutting out the fat in their budgets. I’m sorry to see people laid off. Often the other people in the department have to pick up the slack for the person who has been lost.

I’ve cut quite a few expenses over the last year. I moved my office into my home and save several hundred dollars a month. I found I rarely used my office for client or sales meeting because I like to see what a business’ environment looks like.

I also reduced my mobile wireless from $60 per month to $15 per month, and I got rid of services that I no longer use.

One client I’m working with now is reducing his Yellow Pages expenses from $8000/mn to $3,000/mn starting in January. By doing this he will free up more money to do online marketing, which reaches a greater number of people at a lower cost per lead. And there is more accountability because I can show him in his web site statistics the leads directly attributed to online marketing.

What are some marketing expenses have eliminated or shifted to more effective marketing? I’d like to hear what you’ve learned.