Opportunity

A smart small business owner knows that success often comes down to the ability to exploit opportunities as they come knocking – and also knows that sometimes, if opportunity does not knock, he must sculpt it out of nothing.

The thing with opportunity is that it is often disguised as a crisis or problem and one’s natural inclination in a crisis or problem is to wait it out, hope to be rescued, or run for cover. It is the few who, after a major crisis or problem, will act as rescuers. And it is they who rightfully call the shots. They often create a triage in this case, and those of us who waited to be rescued are completely at the mercy of our rescuer’s judgment and sense of equity.

Take for example, the current mortgage crisis, the current mess that the economy is in. Most people are sitting around with their mouths open trying to make sense of a phenomenon that probably will never make much sense. Most people are feeling gloomy and negative. Many are feeling depressed and devastated – at least financially. Still others are full of anger and blame – If Clinton hadn’t repealed Glass Steagall we wouldn’t be in this mess; if Alan Greenspan hadn’t reduced interest rates to 1% we wouldn’t be in this mess; if Wall Street hadn’t securitized all those mortgages, we wouldn’t be in this mess; if it wasn’t for globalization we wouldn’t be in this mess; if it wasn’t for the War in Iraq we wouldn’t be in this mess…the excuses go on and on.

But there are a few people who, while the rest of us are busy analyzing that which cannot be analyzed, are busy trying to figure out how to make something good, how to reap a crop, out of a very bad soil.

They are looking for OPPORTUNITY. They are looking to see if there are economies of scale in distressed properties, they are looking to see what stocks they can pick up on the dirt cheap, they are looking to see what new technologies they can develop to exploit new and emergent markets that will literally self-pollinate as a result of these economic challenges, they are forming new consulting firms to assist the government and borrowers with finding solutions to the problem....they are creating new hedge funds. Sounds crazy, doesn't it?

They are not covering their heads. They are not twiddling their thumbs. They are revved up, turbo-charged, motivated and energized. Crisis? What crisis?

A smart small business owner is able to exploit even the worse situations and come out with a net gain from the opportunities seized.