Six Surefire Ways to Fail in Business, Guaranteed!

Being Afraid, Very Afraid

We broke a record. The Two Cowboys published more than 400 video features of small businesses and communities since our inception in January 2016. Our non-branded content alone included a further 437 productions we did for our partners and for various Business Excellence Awards.

For a total of around 837 productions, we've met, interviewed and filmed more than 3,000 people in three years! We did it in Canada, USA, Mexico, New Zealand and in South Africa. We also added France and Italy to our travels in 2018. How's that for being busy?

In three short years, we've seen and heard more about businesses than most people do in a lifetime. We thought we knew a lot after University, 25 years of management consulting and years in television production. Instead, we learned a lot more from these business owners in a very short time that we ever imagined. We now also know a lot more about them.

Some of the businesses we met were, and still are, wildly successful. Unfortunately, the majority were not, and probably never will be. We came to the realization, when we looked through the lenses of our cameras (cameras rarely lie) and listened to the conversations we recorded, that the majority of those that are not successful face a single, but a major stumbling block. It doesn't matter where the business is. They all have one infliction.

They have a confidence problem! Because they lack confidence, they fear and some even avoid being successful. Entrepreneurs and business owners lack confidence because they have no idea what is supposed to make them succeed in the first place.

To illustrate the point. Here is a statement from one ignorant, cocky, small, hot sauce business owner, somewhere in the woods of Vancouver Island. "We'll contact you if we ever consider paying for publicity!" Our reply, "Please don't. We'd rather be contacted by someone that understands that publicity is what makes businesses and brands, even commodity hot sauce brands like yours, succeed. It makes businesses go national and global. Heaven forbid that someone actually finds out about your sauce. You may just be forced to deal with success!"

The point is that even if you don't have an interest in the Two Cowboys telling your story, a business owner should grab every opportunity possible to promote and get positive publicity for their product and brand. There are many things you can do to grow your enterprise. The most simple is to simply get out of the way of your success.

Simple Business 101

There are countless sources of entrepreneurial advice available in books and online. You don't have to do an MBA. It is all available by tapping a screen and clicking a button. Every second "consultant" and "authoritative" online page carries the keys to the castle. They can give you the 8 steps to entrepreneurial success, 5 ways to make a million, 7 keys to marketing success, or 10 ways to a six-figure income with your laptop on the beach. Don't forget email marketing and there is an app for that! I don't have to point out that most of this advice come from snake oil salesmen, nobodies and wannabes.

Instead of listing another 5, 8 or even a 100 ways to make it in business, I thought of highlighting the five surefire ways we've gleaned through our observation and experience of how to assure failure. Avoid these mistakes and you are likely to stumble upon the right things to do, by accident. Business is not supposed to be hard. It is not something you have to go and do under duress.

What you do in your business should be natural and align with who you are. If it fits, it is bound to have spontaneous progression and evolution.

Before we court disaster, here is a simple formula we've distilled for a successful maker business:

• Make something of value for yourself. (Product Development, R&D, Tooling, Materials, Prototyping, Testing, Validation, Manufacturing) 
• Find people that value it too. Share it with them. (Positioning, Promotion, Market Validation)
• Make more, and share it more often and with more people. They become your loyal customers. (Logistics, Supply Chain, Distribution, Labour, Packaging, Customer Relationship Management, Customer Support, Marketing, Promotion, Publicity, Selling, Fulfillment, After Sale Support, Quality Control, Billing)
• Exchange it for the amount of value it adds to your customers' lives. (Pricing)
• If your customers value what you make more than it cost you to make it, then you have a business. (Profit)
• Have fun and learn how to get better at it every day! (Evolve and Expand)
• If it doesn't work, make something else.

The same applies to a service business. It is even simpler.

• Do something you value for yourself. (Tools, Expertise, Skill, Knowledge, Effort, Time)
• Find people that value what you do. Do it for them too. (Positioning, Promotion, Validation) 
• Do it often and find more people to do it for. They become your loyal customers. (Customer Relationship Management, Publicity, Marketing, Sales, Service, Billing, Delivery) 
• Exchange it for the amount of value it adds to your customers' lives. (Pricing) 
• If your customers value what you do more than it cost you to do it, then you have a business. (Profit)
• Have fun and learn how to get better at what you do. Do it every day! (Evolve and Grow)
• If it doesn't work, do something else.

Let us Fail

Here are some surefire ways to fail in business.

• WASTE TIME: Procrastinate. Try to please others with a product or service you don't care for and that you don't really value. Do meaningless work that keeps you busy and pays the bills. The outcome will at best be mediocre and you are likely to hate every minute you are involved with it. Waste as much time as possible by delaying decisions. Go to the toilet often. Check your social media. Have meetings after meeting with your team. Collect your salary. Go on vacation. Have a hobby. The more you waste time, the less you will have to actually do.
• SHUN CONTACT: Heaven forbid that people should actually make contact with you about your product or service. Avoid customer contact at all cost. Don't answer your phone. Don't return messages or that email. Don't listen to people. Don't appear on your shop floor and don't interact with your staff. Please don't answer questions or entertain proposals. Make sure your website doesn't have an address, phone number or email address. If you are really serious about shunning contact then get yourself a receptionist, a call centre in India, a personal assistant, PR Firm, appoint a marketing person, and get a social media handler. They will make sure no one can get hold of you. Be very important. Have many titles. Customers won't buy from you and suppliers won't be able to offer you any help. If you cannot be reached, then people won't want something from you.
• AVOID EXPOSURE: Keep yourself a mystery. Hide! Avoid publicity. Don't have a proper website, or don't have one at all. Tell as little as possible about your product or service. Consider social media evil. Don't go near it. Never have a page on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Don't do any marketing or promotions. Avoid all forms of advertising. Remove your business listing from Google and maps. Take your shop's sign down. Don't put your business name on your vehicle. Throw away your business cards. Avoid telling your customers how to use your products and the benefits of your service. Remember, the less exposure you have the more likely no one will bother you.
• SKIRT FEEDBACK: Customer reviews are evil. Don't encourage reviews. Take down your Google reviews and disable your Facebook feedback button. Don't ask customers what you can do to make their product or experience better. If they do offer feedback deride them. Make them feel insignificant. Be a victim. Don't respond. You won't have to learn and adjust your product or service and won't meet your customers' expectations. If you skirt feedback then the truth won't hurt you. 
• AVOID SUCCESS: If you are unsuccessful you will have plenty to complain about. You won't make a difference in people's lives. If you avoid success, people won't care. If you are successful more people will want something from you and bother you often. With success, you may turn a profit and will have to pay more taxes and employ more people. By avoiding success you can have your predictable life. You won't be faced with challenges. You can blame your circumstances and your failure on someone and something else. 

The Two Cowboys

Our business is a simple business. 

We love researching, investigating, learning, meeting interesting people, filming and telling stories about the things and places that interest us. The things we value is good food, inspiring people, innovative products and businesses, great beer, and the freedom to travel and work all over the world. We tell these stories in the best way we can through video, photography and writing in our Blog. We feel the world needs more fun and inspiration. We hope to give that to our audience.

Our audience enjoys watching our programming and armchair travelling with us. Our programming is insightful, informative and entertaining. The people, businesses and places we feature garner publicity through our content. They win over new customers. More people learn about them and is likely to deal or visit them. It becomes a channel with much-needed positive exposure for their brands.

We are constantly looking for new stories and bigger partners to feature. We produce as much content as we can and feature as many people, businesses and places as is willing to engage us. We package our content around topics and themes. One theme we love to exploit is a maker theme where we feature people that create and make products. We have several food and cooking themes. We have a travel and camping theme. Overall, the Two Cowboys is an entertaining lifestyle content brand that we live every day and where we invite others to join us on our journey.

Our pricing models make it possible for the smallest business to afford to be featured by the Cowboys and for some of the largest partners to have constant access to fresh and informative highly professionally produced promotional content. At the same time, our audience can access our materials online for free so that we can reach the broadest audience possible.

Our business and our brand keeps growing even in the most difficult economic times in Canada's recent memory. Where businesses realize the power of our promotional capabilities they engage us often and with great success. We love what we do and don't want to do anything else.

Thank you for helping us succeed in our endeavour to show the world that it is a better place.

Hendrik van Wyk

Business Cowboy

Another Day, Another Job on the Block - The Solution

The Answer to Job Losses

Producers are the lifeblood of the economy. These are the people that make things and/or add value to things that are part of our everyday existence. For example, they include the chefs that prepare and manufacture our food, builders for our houses and infrastructure, engineers constructions and tools, bakers, farmers, butchers, and many more. We know them in their workshops, kitchens, factories, foundries and work sites.

When the Producers work, they created something, or transforms something that is useful to themselves, and to others. Their production is used by people, and other producers. Producers add direct value to their consumers and employees. Indirectly, the community benefits through taxes that are levied on producers' earnings.

The benefits to the Producer and community increase when the producer does business outside the community, province or country. It brings revenue into the area. It increases the scope of the value they provide.

Producers are important because they form the tax base, and economic foundation of any society's social and public services. They pay company taxes on profits. Their staff pay personal income taxes from what they earn. In addition, Producers contribute to insurance, pensions, levies and licenses, which all serve to enhance our society.

Because of Producers' efforts, it is possible to have healthcare, social services, education and shared infrastructure. All government sponsored social and infrastructural services is ultimately coming from the wealth generated by producers.

Producers contribute to people's lives by providing meaningful employment. People are employed directly by the Producer to work in the businesses. Indirectly, people work in public services that is financed by the tax revenue.

Why be interested in Producers?

Learning and creating, the ingredients for producing, are natural human qualities. By making something, people find self-worth, recognition, meaning, growth, and purpose in life. Producers make things, and provide opportunities for people to work with, and for them, to make things. They make it possible for people to live well.

Having healthy Producers in a community allows the community to benefit overall from the same qualities offered to the individual: A community's self worth, purpose, recognition, progress, and more is built on the foundation of Producers, the jobs they provide, and the social services they finance.

Communities with strong and growing Producers, and an increase in the number of producers are communities that are healthy and progressive.  If we have more producers amongst us, we are all collectively better off. If we make it easy for Producers to produce, and to trade their production, everybody benefits.

Jobs at Risk

The Calgary Herald reports that in Alberta, Canada, group layoffs during 2015 have surpassed 18,000 workers. These are only layoffs off people in groups and reported to the Provincial Government. Provincially, the number of EI recipients was up 99 per cent, or 28,830 people, from a year earlier. In November alone, 2015 the province shed 14,900 positions and crossed the threshold for 7% unemployed.

Canmore, Alberta

The Huffington Post reports that Alberta lost 52,800 jobs in the past year, or 2.6 per cent of all positions in the province, the largest loss of any province. Saskatchewan came second, with a loss of 6,800 jobs, or 1.4 per cent of the province's total.

Canada lost jobs at the fastest pace since the Great Recession, Statistics Canada’s latest payroll report shows in August 2015.

While many of these job losses is attributed to the pressure in the energy producing sector, it is not all as a result of the price pressure on oil.

MIT Technology Review reported in 2013 that Oxford researchers estimate that 45 percent of America’s occupations will be automated within the next 20 years. The authors believe the takeover will happen in two stages. First, computers will start replacing people in especially vulnerable fields like transportation/logistics, production labor, and administrative support. Jobs in services, sales, and construction may also be lost in this first stage.

Then, the rate of replacement will slow down due to bottlenecks in harder-to-automate fields such engineering. This “technological plateau” will be followed by a second wave of computerization, dependent upon the development of good artificial intelligence. This could next put jobs in management, science and engineering, and the arts at risk.

The bottom line is that jobs are flying out the door thanks to economic downturns or through technological advances. It is bound to become even scarcer in the near future for many reasons. Some locations and industries are hurting more than others. One thing is certain, every job is possibly at risk. 

What is happening to the jobs? Are producers still producing, but not employing anymore, or is it that we are losing Producers?

In this post, it should be evident that this is not a simple answer. What is simple though, is recognizing our society's dependence on the real job creators are - our Producers - and their motivations for doing what they do.

Regardless of technology reducing the need for human labour, which is is inevitable in progress, there will always be scope for production and another innovative way to make something that makes life easier, or gives more meaning. Someone had to conceive it, finance it, risk and exerted effort to realize it. The real jobs are those of people that produce, or the jobs available as a result of someone else producing. We all need Producers.

Where's the Beef

The public sector is hiring. The Financial Post reported in June 2015 that the Public sector is ‘crowding out’ private job growth in Canada. According to the Toronto Sun, growth in government employment has eclipsed the private sector, especially in Ontario. In Alberta 15% of jobs are in the public sector earning a combined $21.1 Billion (52%) in wages and salaries of $40.4 Billion of total government expenditure in 2014. Is this a good thing?

No one can argue with the landslide political landscape change in Canadian politics in 2015.

First, the Albertans got rid of the Progressive Conservative government by exchanging it for a public service and Union supported NDP. Then the rest of Canada decided that it was time to give the Liberal social agenda more scope, by voting in Justin Trudeau and the multicultural Liberal Party.

The Progressive Conservatives in Alberta, and the Federal Conservative parties both cautioned about the financial pressure on the Canadian economy. This caution was based on the soft outlook of the energy sector and the drop in the price of oil, after years of the manufacturers being under pressure in Canada. They warned that the softening may require adjustment in public spending due to less tax revenues (i.e. less people having jobs in the public sector, because there are not enough tax revenue to keep everyone employed). If producers are suffering, then taxes will be less to finance public spending.

The result for both parties who cautioned fiscal responsibility, was that they were dispatched in favour of the newcomer NDP and Liberals. Both these new incumbent parties are recognized as big public spenders. The NDP and Liberal parties are quite vocal about their intent to not only preserve the current public employment sector provincially and federally, but intend to expand it wholesomely.

While every tax paying worker in Alberta, not in public service, is taking a haircut by losing their job or foregoing increases and bonuses, the NDP made it clear in that province, that their support base has nothing to fear. Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci stated publicly, that he will not revisit collective labour deals (Edmonton Sun 4 November, 2015).

They key message is that if times are tough, and if jobs are on the line, then you better back the biggest employer in Canada - the Government. You better elect the party that will keep the public sector working and the public spending going.

But wait. Who's paying for all this? There is always the uncomfortable recognition that someone has to fit the bill for social spending, eventually. Remember that in social spending, most of the time, the benefactor is not the contributor. Other people's money is spent.

As we've seen above, Producers are ultimately the foundation of the economy's and the government's revenue base. They create the value, and is the tax base for public services. If the private sector workers, employed by Producers, are losing their jobs, and companies are scaling back (i.e. is not paying the taxes they used to), and the public sector is growing (i.e. the government keeps on spending to maintain their support base), then revenue is bound to come under considerable pressure.

A typical and familiar strategy comes to mind, and which is playing out as predictably as always:

• Increase Taxes: The Globe and Mail reported in September that the NDP planned on added almost CAD$7 Billion in additional taxes. The most recent announcement of a carbon taxes loaded another $30 Billion on the backs of "earners" (read Producers here). Together with tax increases on the "wealthy", and corporates, the Alberta Government will bring in an additional $1.5 billion in 2015, and $4.6 billion in revenue over the next two years. (BNN, 27 October, 2015). With the increase in spending, this doesn't appear to be enough though? Which, brings us to the next familiar Strategy: Borrow.
• Borrow More: The NDP is on a borrowing rampage. Total debt is set to hit $18.9 billion this year. That figure will swell $36.6 billion by 2018 but could grow as high as $47 billion by the end of 2019-20. (National Post, 27 October, 2015)

Sadly, the change in Alberta's fortunes is not new. The game has been played before by much bigger players. In Canada's landscape, the "have Provinces" have been subsidizing the "have not Provinces" and their bloated bureaucracies for years. The US economy is another drunk on debt, anemic job growth, and an explosion in public sector spending and overbearing regulations. The Standard Weekly in 2012 reported that the total US national debt is US$16.8 Trillion, which is 35% higher per capita that one of Europe's most broke countries: Greece! It has kept growing.

There are many articles to quote about the ongoing increase in taxes, bloated public services and astronomic national debts. All sing a familiar and similar song: The government must provide. The people need more. The businesses are greedy and should complain less. The problem is that eventually even the Government can no longer pay its bills if there is less or no revenue by willing Producers.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

If you are in the public service or a corporation that is benefitting from government financial or regulatory support, then it is still going well for you overall. The public sector is currently on the receiving end of all the increase in funding through taxation and borrowing of the newly elected Governments.

The recent Liberal shift in public sentiment bears testimony to people's reach for safety in uncertain times. They look to the Government to provide the jobs and the social safety nets when times are hard. Any Government seen to waver or communicate restraint is seen as risking the status quo. However, even the borrowing, taxing and spending governments are fast running out of options as they and their country's citizens run out of money.

Producers, facing the brunt of taxations, regulations and a difficult market, are revenue contributors to the punch drunk governmental spending party. For them, the motivation to produce, for others to spend during hard times, become more and more unattractive. The look ahead is also not inspiring with high public dept that will need to be serviced in future.

The simple result is that Producers scale back, or stops producing all together. There simply is no motivation to create something under difficult circumstances that is bound to be taken away from you anyway. Producers are not signing up for new risks. They are no longer investing, creating or open for business. The Financial Post reported in 2014 that CAD $630 Billion of cash is held back by Canadian companies, and not being invested in growth and expansion. This amount continues to grow. Why invest, expand and employ of there is a slim chance of holding on to the spoils. Why exert effort to only be told to handover more of it, to a non-supportive (or Producer non-representative) Government?

Margaret Thatcher's quote comes to mind: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

Getting it Right

The answer to job losses and economic pressures is not to expand the public purse by growing public services, increasing taxes and borrowing. Government and public services should not be the employer of choice. when that happens, no only has a society given away its liberty, but it is also killing its future.

If true wealth comes from Producers, then it is time for Producers to be included, cherished, and supported. When Producers grow, and the number of Producers increase, then jobs become available. More public funding for public services become accessible, not because the Producers are taxed more. Rather, because more are producing for the tax base to expand. More Producers are contributing so that everyone can benefit.

The right way is to support Producers to grow their businesses when times are tough, and to make it easy for more people to become Producers.

Give producers incentives to produce. It is hard enough in a tough market to succeed in business. Governments should not make it harder. The simplest way to unleash the resourcefulness of innovative hardworking producers is to make it easy for people to start a producing business, and to keep it fair for them to compete in a market. Government should simply get out of the way, and allow Producers to keep a little more of the benefits for their efforts. Everyone will be better off as a result.

This is why we celebrate entrepreneurs and committed people with producing businesses. They form the backbone of a community and a society. They are are the foundation of a country's success. It is time we recognize them and their efforts.

Hendrik van Wyk

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