Page 95 - Benjamin Franklin\'s The Way to Wealth: A 52 brilliant ideas interpretation - PDFDrive.com

43 PREPARE FOR THE WORST

We’re often so busy getting on with business that we don’t really have
time to learn from our mistakes but, as Franklin would have been the
first to point out, learning is what distinguishes the smart from the
stupid: ‘wise men learn by others’ harms, fools scarcely by their own’.

DEFINING IDEA…
I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.
~ JOHN D. ROCKEFELER

Nobody wants to dwell on the possible downsides of commerce because if
we focused on everything that could go wrong we’d probably never get out
of bed in the morning, never mind get into business. Totally ignoring the
potential pitfalls, however, is nearly as bad as cockiness and overconfidence.
According to UK bank Lloyds TSB, nearly half of all small businesses fail
within their first three years, and while one in five businesses suffers some
kind of major disruption in a year a crushing 80% of small and medium
enterprises (SMEs) fail to recover if it happens to them and close down
within the next eighteen months.

The vast majority of smaller enterprises have no emergency plan to cope
with major troubles such as flooding, fire, vandalism or terrorism and yet it
is precisely the SMEs that have the least resources in reserve to keep them
afloat if they are forced to stop trading for any period of time. Be
absolutely honest; have you drawn up your worst-case scenario? And if you
have, do you have a plan for dealing with it other than curling into a small
ball and hiding under your desk?

If you came up short on the above question then it’s time to follow
Franklin and look around at ‘others’ harms’. Trade publications are a pretty
good starting point since there isn’t an industry newspaper in print that
doesn’t lead with the cock-ups of your peers. Missing deadlines, penalty
clauses, power cuts, industrial accidents, mass layoffs—they are the stock in
trade of your industry press and while it certainly isn’t cheerful reading, it