Secret of small business is knowing where buck stops
by Bob Hoig, Publisher
Midlands Business Journal
Last week the Lincoln Business Journal’s sister publication, the Midlands Business Journal, inducted 40 young men and women into MBJ’s 40 Under 40 young leadership program.
If you’re wondering what great insights propel them, try this. They know where the buck stops.
Last Friday’s ceremony brought to 320 the number of entrepreneurs, executives and professional men and women under the age of 40 recognized since our program started in 2002.
As years go, the two are strangely similar. In 2002, the so-called dot-com implosion had caused havoc in the economy.
The year 2009 has mortgage meltdowns, huge trade imbalances and trillion dollar deficits from stimulus programs.
As individuals, the young leaders in our classes of 40 Under 40 winners are remarkable.
But there is another reason they are mentioned in the editorial opinion column and not simply as a business news item.
Entrepreneurs have been willing to risk everything: time, money and reputations to form firms that survive. In the category of managers, we have honored men and women nominated because of their willingness to lead their agencies or departments.
All understand that their organizations work because they innovate and work. They are like many others in other cities. No wizard is pulling levers behind screens of the nation’s more than 30 million small businesses.
Thanks to our free enterprise system handed down by the framers of the U.S. Constitution, the buck stops somewhere. It stops with them.
We believe that when large organizations and the government stumble, it is because of the lack of individual responsibility. The buck stops somewhere. But where?
There is little temptation for small business owners to “let George do it” — “George” being synonymous with “someone else, or as in aviation, entrusting the mission to “George” the autopilot.
When our entrepreneurs start their businesses, there is no one else. When the equipment breaks down, “George” doesn’t fix it. They do.
When the payroll is due and cash is scarce or payment is coming up on the bank loan, who gets on the phone with late-paying customers or the banker? If the business is to survive, it is the leader.
The pipes freeze. The roof leaks. The phones fail. Poor employees don’t show up. Good employees leave for better pay than the company can afford. The OSHA inspectors are due. The mail brings government forms. Unlike large firms, there are no departments to which to turn for legal help, no research and development, no compliance. Services, when they are needed, are generally bought at retail, not wholesale.
Yes, our fledgling business owners or young managers have much to ponder, usually around 3 a.m.
Having no choice, they make it or not. There are no printing presses for dollars. With failure, what is lost is Uncle Ted’s loan or their own second mortgage money. What is gained is what so many have told us in these past eight years. Bestowed on them is the chance to follow their dreams.
With no “George” in sight, they are free to fail — or to succeed.
December 15, 2009
