Don't Cast Pearls Before Swine......
Don’t Cast Pearls before Swine
By Sheila Spangler
What does it mean? Here’s my definition. “Don’t give un-paid advice to people who are unable or unwilling to implement the value of that advice”.
I met a business owner who has fluctuating cash flow and profits….like many people these days. He has a pretty good enterprise. It is currently cash-flow positive but it has reached a plateau.
The business is at a critical juncture. Should we figure out how to dramatically increase sales and profits? Or should we cut costs, like our accountant advises?
In this case, “more is better”. Creating and implementing key business strategies, can profitably increase sales without raising expenses. I uncovered the hidden opportunities, identified weaknesses and what to do about them. I laid it out in a comprehensive marketing plan. He loved it!
By the way, you may be wondering why anyone would prepare a strategic business and marketing plan. Here’s why.
If you want to exit your business someday and have the highest value possible, building sales and profits through a measurable and reliable marketing system is the most important thing you can do.
I work with business owners who want to maximize the value of their business to fulfill their dreams. Those dreams may include travel, children’s education, or personal goals such as writing a book, teaching, saving the rain forest, etc.
The quickest way to build value in any company….your company…. is to identify the value your business offers, target your customers and do what it takes to keep them coming back.
Why? Because nothing happens in your business without a sale. You can’t pay yourself, your employees or the rent without selling something. And sales lead to profits. Profits lead to business value. No sale, no profit, no value.
Back to the story.
The owner’s ‘business partner’ hadn’t been involved in any of our meetings. In fact, I hadn’t known there was a business partner?! What?
Didn’t you do your homework, Sheila? Didn’t you check the corporate ownership articles and even ask the owner if he was the final decision maker? Well…..yes.
However, what I didn’t know was that the owner had given OWNERSHIP POWER to an EMPLOYEE. This is not a legal transfer of power but one that happens every day in business.
An owner trusts a long term employee’s opinion. Sometimes it’s warranted, sometimes it isn’t. That is not important to this story. But what is important is that I should have found out by asking the right questions up front – such as “who else in your company (owner or trusted employee) besides you will have a say in making the decision to hire me?”
So what does this have to do with “casting pearls before swine”? If you are spending time to build your business by attracting the right customers make sure you are talking to all the people who have the ‘authority’ (written or unwritten) to make the decision.
Otherwise, you may as well take those expensive gems (called knowledge gained through years of hard work) and throw them in the muck. Hogs don’t care about pearls……they just want to eat and lie around in the slop.
I grew up on a farm where we raised hogs. Big, meaty, healthy swine….some black, some white. Always stinky. My father used to joke that “it was the smell of money”.
However, smelly or not, it was my responsibility to feed and water those hogs twice a day. And during the summer, my brother and I would race to the hog sheds to see who could reach the water hose first.
Why? Because pigs don’t sweat. They can’t. No sweat glands.
They have to be showered down and love to have a mud hole to lie in. And if you’re a farm kid, spraying water from a hose that has been lying in the sun all morning in 100 degree heat can be quite exciting for the pig! Not to mention entertaining for the farm kids.
And you thought that old saying “sweating like a pig” meant that you were working hard. No, it really means that you rely on someone else to provide you with a shower, a meal and a place to sleep. As long as you get these things, nothing else is important. Pigs don’t realize that their sole purpose is to grow into big, fat hogs. And we all know what happens to them.
So what happened with the business owner? Nothing. He and his ‘partner’ are too busy right now to consider implementing a plan to grow their sales and profits. What??!!!
The sun is out, the mud hole is freshly filled and there’s still some grain in the trough. Yep, I’m just gonna lie here for awhile. But thanks for all the FREE advice (advice not taken). We’ll get back to you when the mud hole goes dry…….
In other words, we’re too busy running the business the same old way we always have. We do wonder, though, why things don’t seem to get any better. Oh, it’s the ECONOMY! That’s it. It’s not us or the way we do things. Noooooooo…….it’s the housing market, the credit crisis…….yep.
Now, is this business going to close down tomorrow? ABSOLUTELY NOT! And, this is another important lesson. Its doing okay but it could be doing so much better without a great deal more work…… just different strategies.
Now is the time to implement change. Do it when things are still okay, not when the business starts to falter. Unfortunately, this is when most business owners think about it. Then they make mistakes because they are desperate for positive results.
Whew! Back to the mudhole!
Remember: “Pigs get fat but hogs get slaughtered”.
By Sheila Spangler
What does it mean? Here’s my definition. “Don’t give un-paid advice to people who are unable or unwilling to implement the value of that advice”.
I met a business owner who has fluctuating cash flow and profits….like many people these days. He has a pretty good enterprise. It is currently cash-flow positive but it has reached a plateau.
The business is at a critical juncture. Should we figure out how to dramatically increase sales and profits? Or should we cut costs, like our accountant advises?
In this case, “more is better”. Creating and implementing key business strategies, can profitably increase sales without raising expenses. I uncovered the hidden opportunities, identified weaknesses and what to do about them. I laid it out in a comprehensive marketing plan. He loved it!
By the way, you may be wondering why anyone would prepare a strategic business and marketing plan. Here’s why.
If you want to exit your business someday and have the highest value possible, building sales and profits through a measurable and reliable marketing system is the most important thing you can do.
I work with business owners who want to maximize the value of their business to fulfill their dreams. Those dreams may include travel, children’s education, or personal goals such as writing a book, teaching, saving the rain forest, etc.
The quickest way to build value in any company….your company…. is to identify the value your business offers, target your customers and do what it takes to keep them coming back.
Why? Because nothing happens in your business without a sale. You can’t pay yourself, your employees or the rent without selling something. And sales lead to profits. Profits lead to business value. No sale, no profit, no value.
Back to the story.
The owner’s ‘business partner’ hadn’t been involved in any of our meetings. In fact, I hadn’t known there was a business partner?! What?
Didn’t you do your homework, Sheila? Didn’t you check the corporate ownership articles and even ask the owner if he was the final decision maker? Well…..yes.
However, what I didn’t know was that the owner had given OWNERSHIP POWER to an EMPLOYEE. This is not a legal transfer of power but one that happens every day in business.
An owner trusts a long term employee’s opinion. Sometimes it’s warranted, sometimes it isn’t. That is not important to this story. But what is important is that I should have found out by asking the right questions up front – such as “who else in your company (owner or trusted employee) besides you will have a say in making the decision to hire me?”
So what does this have to do with “casting pearls before swine”? If you are spending time to build your business by attracting the right customers make sure you are talking to all the people who have the ‘authority’ (written or unwritten) to make the decision.
Otherwise, you may as well take those expensive gems (called knowledge gained through years of hard work) and throw them in the muck. Hogs don’t care about pearls……they just want to eat and lie around in the slop.
I grew up on a farm where we raised hogs. Big, meaty, healthy swine….some black, some white. Always stinky. My father used to joke that “it was the smell of money”.
However, smelly or not, it was my responsibility to feed and water those hogs twice a day. And during the summer, my brother and I would race to the hog sheds to see who could reach the water hose first.
Why? Because pigs don’t sweat. They can’t. No sweat glands.
They have to be showered down and love to have a mud hole to lie in. And if you’re a farm kid, spraying water from a hose that has been lying in the sun all morning in 100 degree heat can be quite exciting for the pig! Not to mention entertaining for the farm kids.
And you thought that old saying “sweating like a pig” meant that you were working hard. No, it really means that you rely on someone else to provide you with a shower, a meal and a place to sleep. As long as you get these things, nothing else is important. Pigs don’t realize that their sole purpose is to grow into big, fat hogs. And we all know what happens to them.
So what happened with the business owner? Nothing. He and his ‘partner’ are too busy right now to consider implementing a plan to grow their sales and profits. What??!!!
The sun is out, the mud hole is freshly filled and there’s still some grain in the trough. Yep, I’m just gonna lie here for awhile. But thanks for all the FREE advice (advice not taken). We’ll get back to you when the mud hole goes dry…….
In other words, we’re too busy running the business the same old way we always have. We do wonder, though, why things don’t seem to get any better. Oh, it’s the ECONOMY! That’s it. It’s not us or the way we do things. Noooooooo…….it’s the housing market, the credit crisis…….yep.
Now, is this business going to close down tomorrow? ABSOLUTELY NOT! And, this is another important lesson. Its doing okay but it could be doing so much better without a great deal more work…… just different strategies.
Now is the time to implement change. Do it when things are still okay, not when the business starts to falter. Unfortunately, this is when most business owners think about it. Then they make mistakes because they are desperate for positive results.
Whew! Back to the mudhole!
Remember: “Pigs get fat but hogs get slaughtered”.
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