I don’t even really start at the Bronze Age.

If the truth be told, I actually start from there and go back to the development of homo sapiens wandering out of West Africa as as they emerged from the multiple failed hominids that didn’t quite make it.

It’s a strange hobby, I know, but apparently it appears to really be my hobby . . .  after all.

I didn’t really think about it as a hobby until one day when I was pontificating endlessly driving with my wife, Janet, and our three sweethearts.  After a ten minute diatribe on the development of intelligence in hominids, she turned to me and said, literally after eighteen years of marriage, “Wow, you really do need a hobby, don’t you?”

Since I really don’t know the stats on the most recent football scores, even though I still follow Notre Dame regardless of its inability to cleanly win a game, or what teams played in the World Series, or even what season of sports it actually is, I realized in that conversastion that early anthropological development actually was my hobby . . . as lame as that must sound.

In any event, and back to the subject of this blog, I happened to be reviewing an ancient map of the Aegean Sea for no particular reason except to simply connect the dots between modern cities and how they evolved some 3000 years ago.

Something occurred to me in the process.

If you take a look at some of the most historical spots in the development of human history, they tend to be strategically positioned in incredible ways, the implications of which become obvious almost immediately.

• Babylon sat at the nexus between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the Mesopotamian Peninsula, labeled today the “fertile crescent” in what was then Babylon (now Iraq), bordering Persia (now Iran).
• Alexandria, home to Egyptian civilization and allegedly to the largest library in the ancient world, surrounded the shores of the Nile River and the Mediterranean Sea.
• For Carthage, in the promontory of North Africa’s Tunis, no boat would dare traverse the distance between it and Sicily without paying an ancient Seafarer’s Toll, what would clearly be considered today “protection money.”
• Rome, centrally located on the Mediterranean and an equal distance between North and South Italy — well, not much more needs to be said about Rome.
• Athens sat at the base of the Greek peninsula with full access to the Mediterranean and the Aegean Seas.
• Troy guarded the entry point from the Aegean Sea to the hellspont with its access to the Sea of Marmara and ultimately through to the Black Sea.
• Byzantium’s “Constantinople” a/k/a Istanbul guarded the Black Sea itself and became the gatekeeper from the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea and ultimately . . . to the Eastern world.

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point.

It’s not as if I didn’t study ancient history in school, as I’m sure you all did. It’s just that it hadn’t been quite so clear to me until I saw the ancient map through my eyes today. Every one of the metropolitan cities I just described had life cycles not of ten years, fifty years, or even of one hundred years. The shortest of all of them was centuries more than that.

As I thought about the map of Antiquities, I considered historical perspective interesting, but it hadn’t occurred to me that there was any application to modern business theory. As I thought about it some more, however, the obvious became more obvious.

Were you to take a look at the region around Babylon, Alexandria, Carthage, Rome, Athens, Troy, or Byzantium, you would see a massive list of cities, townships and regions whose names none of us know. And the reason is very simple: they don’t exist anymore. Most have perished, and those that exist are “also rans.”

On the other hand, when you track the empires built around the cities I just mentioned, the shortest length of time in which that particular city influenced the world was 600 years – that’s the least amount of time – and the largest has survived to the present time, of course, including Istanbul, Rome and Athens.  And that’s just in the region, although the same holds true on a World Map of Antiquities for other regions of the world.

That simple observation, whether it is profound or obvious or, frankly, just plain wrong, flies in the face of anything that I’ve ever said about business.

In my first published book, Finding Your Niche, I wrote that a mediocre business concept, effectively executed, trumps a brilliant concept poorly executed, every time. As I now take a look at a map of Antiquities, I have to question that fundamental assumption, which by the way, I now also have to question based upon my personal experiences and observations over the past two years.

Each of the cities I just described was tumultuous. They had ups and downs. They were captured. They regained their independence. They got captured again. They regained their independence again. They were devastated by internal corruption.  They were destroyed by natural events.  They were raised to the ground . . . more than once  And so forth and so on. But, at the end of the day, they all survived and they stayed relevant and meaningful.

On the other hand, when each of the other cities within their sphere of influence got hit by any of the above, they were gone. Simply gone. They became nothing more interesting than artifacts from digs orchestrated by modern archeologists. The reason, it appears to me, is that while they might have been effectively executed at one point in time, they simply were not brilliantly positioned to withstand the test of time.

That same rule applies to business today.

There is no question that there are businesses that sit in a strategic position and, because of that, will continue to endure, no matter what. Is General Electric one of those? Probably.

Is AT&T one of those? I suspect so.

Microsoft? Yes.

Apple? Probably.

But when we take a look at AOL, or Yahoo, or Blackberry (RIM), or Sears, or Netflix, or candidly the most recent of our IPO’s — Groupon — which went public two weeks ago, or hundreds of others, my thought is that it is unlikely.  They might surf trends, or be effectively executed . . . but brilliantly positioned?  I doubt it.

Strategic positioning doesn’t span years, or decades. It spans centuries, if not millennia. While for profit companies like the East India Trading Corporation or Wells Fargo might not have survived a millennium based on their current positions, they clearly survived centuries based on their strategic positioning.

I remain committed to tactical effectiveness and consistent, if not compelling, execution; but, in reviewing these Old Maps, I have a new found respect for the turf a company has homesteaded for itself: the turf which we call strategic positioning.

Very much like the black box game, he was able to postulate a theory based upon nothing other than seeing how those symptoms played out or manifested in reality.

The fact that he couldn’t explain “how” had no effect on the credibility of the theory, because the phenomena were consistent nonetheless and seemed to reflect some process beyond the tools of the day to explain.

Evolution and natural selection were steps forward in that explanation, far superior to anything postulated at that time.

Genetics continues that process forward as it takes the symptoms of evolutionary development and transforms it into an explanation as fundamental to the development of life forms as atoms and sub-atomic particles are to an understanding of matter.

Evolution is to the origin of homo sapiens what cosmology is to the origin of the universe.

Nonetheless, despite the science, and as far back as we place it from 7 days 10,000 years ago to the last 2.5 billion years over 14.5 billion years, there still remains lurking in the human soul the fundamental question – why? – and by whom?

Assume the next development of a species in which organs are freely transplantable or replicatable based upon simple science.

Assume a time in which organisms live based on transplantable and replicatable gene therapy . . . but with our minds and our souls.

Is that another species entirely? Is it the same species? Who are we when we have the opportunity to live for 100 years or indefinitely? Are we homo sapiens or are we some other life form?  What does that do to our view of reality?  What does that do to our view of life?

Assume even more a time in which we replicate transplantable organs with gene therapy and implant organic silica for the cerebral transfer of information in nano seconds.

How does that alter the calculus of discussion?  How does that change our life views?

Are we the same species or different?

How do we live our lives under those circumstances?

Do we feel more . . . or less?  Do we care more . . . or less?  Do we love more . . . or less?

What was intriguing to me when I had penned the blog on Ellen and Oprah a few weeks ago, became manifestly obvious to me as I watched that retrospective.  Not only has the tide shifted from Oprah-power to Ellen-consciousness in the blink of an eye, but Ellen has emerged a clear psychic victor for reasons I only began to surmise a few short weeks ago and can articulate more cogently today.

Let me outline those here:

• I thought Oprah was wonderful, bringing salient and important human themes through her show routinely; however, in the back of my mind, virtually all the time, I felt that it was as much about Oprah as it was about the themes themselves.  Rightly or wrongly, I viewed Oprah as a wee bit too egocentric:  a wee bit too “look at me, ’America’, I made it after all.”  On the other hand, I find Ellen less thematic and more people driven.  And, when she is exposing those people — interesting people — it really is about them, not about Ellen, even when she’s being her goofiest.
• Ellen gave away some type of tablet to everyone who was in attendance at her 1400th show last night.  And, of course, that is a gesture clearly taken from Oprah’s playbook.  However, when Ellen gave it away, it was far less about her, far less about fanfare, and far more subdued than anything Janet had been crying about on Oprah’s show in past years.  With Oprah, giving away a potted plant had so much pomp and circumstance attached to it, I was actually a wee bit embarrassed for the recipients, and even more embarrassed about Oprah.  With Ellen, I barely noticed it was a gift at all, which is exactly as it should be.
• It goes without saying that the subjects of Ellen’s inquiry are far more about people and far less about world-changing events.  With a philosophical bend, I’m always interested in world views and global influences.  But because I felt I had to deal with Oprah as much as the themes, I hesitated to engage.  In Ellen’s world, life is far more about human weaknesses and foibles — risque, eccentric and idiosyncratic, but fun in a non-judgmental way — far more about the embarrassements along the way, and far more about living through them with a sense of humor than an obligation to act.  It is almost as if I’m comparing Ordinary People to the Incredible Lightness of Being.
• And as I saw the digital edits of those past shows, it occurred to me that Ellen was her best without a teleprompter or ear piece.  In fact, she was fresh, exciting and enticing.  When I used to view Oprah over  Janet’s shoulder, I saw a terribly gifted celebrity and interviewer controlled more by an earpiece and much less by raw instinct.  Neither is necessarily good or bad, but Ellen’s way is far easier to digest.

Let me simply pause.

These thoughts are at best docile observations from the bullpen.  Lest anyone be concerned, I was and remain an ardent admirer of the Big “O”, but I couldn’t help observing in Oprah’s time that Oprah’s work was often overshadowed by Oprah herself.  I can’t help observing today that Ellen in Motion allows me to relax and doesn’t judge me in the process.

Oprah, you’ve done your work . . . and it was game changing.  Focus on building your network and allow distance in time to build your legend ever more.  There’s more for you out there, but not from the front lines.  That time has passed.

Ellen, I wish you Godspeed in showing yourself to America.  You’re doing great!  Keep at it!!!

Her rationale is the fact that if she were ever attacked by any “bad men,” she’d be able to defend herself by giving them a “hi yah” and a “hi yeh.” Her firm belief is that once she delivers a “hi yah” and a “hi yeh” along with a swift high kick, whoever the “bad men” are, they will be running away.

While I questioned the rationale, I clearly did not question her passion. So, all was going well and I even indicated to her that I was going to get all of the particulars about the different programs in a couple mile radius for karate classes for children. She got very excited. In the process of her excitement, she got right to the point: “When do you think I will get a belt, Daddy?”

I told her that the belt wasn’t given, it was earned.

“Right! Got it.  So, when do I get it?”

She persisted:  ”Daddy, I understand what you’re saying (she said with the roll of both eyes), but answer my question:  when am I going to get the belt?”

And then I realized, of course, that it really is all about the belt, not just for Isabella, but for most people.

It’s the belt, after all!  The hidden incentive of behavior at every level.

I don’t know how many of you have listened to the Broadway Station on Sirius. It’s Sirius XM Channel 77. It’s a little funky, just a wee bit pretentious, and I guess you have to enjoy Broadway as much as the listeners of opera enjoy Met Opera on Sirius, or fans of Jimmy Buffet enjoy Margaritaville.

There is a fellow whose name is Seth Rudetsky. Since I haven’t listened to Broadway very long, I’m not really sure what his story is, but I know that he appears to be a pretty big deal in the Sirius Broadway realm, and maybe even Broadway itself. They have a particular show, along with several anchors which are interview shows.

I happened to be listening to an interview between Seth, Johnni James (sorry if the spelling is off), and Ben Vereen. Yes, the Ben Vereen of “All That Jazz,” “Pippin,”  “Funny Girl” with Barbara Streisand, and “Chicken George” of Roots.

If you know anything about Ben Vereen aside from what an incredibly talented performer he is, you might know (which I didn’t) that he has won several Tony’s and has been a mainstay on Broadway for a very long time.

Seth kept focusing him in the interview on his choices of parts, his awards, his accolades, and all the like.

To Seth, it had everything to do with artistic “choices.” 

To Ben Vereen, it didn’t have anything to do with any of that. It was really all about, in Ben’s words, “the work.” He loved the work and he wanted to work. It didn’t matter what part he played. He preferred to work with directors like Bob Fosse of “All That Jazz,” no matter what Bob Fosse did and no matter what Bob Fosse cast him in.  But, at the end of the day, while his preference was creative directors, his choice was simply to be able to work and work with people he enjoyed working with. He even talked about the difference between work and unemployment lines and he said he definitely preferred “work!”

At one point in time, after hammering his message home, Seth asked him yet again why he chose a particular part. His answer, predictably, was, “Seth, the WORK!”

I thought about that for a while, because, not being a Broadway aficionado, but finding musicals easy to enjoy, I certainly know Ben’s “work.” It’s monumental. It’s over the top. It is enormously talented. And he is in the moment when he is performing — even if he is performing each and every night, six days a week and twice on Sundays, on Broadway, for three years straight.

He brings his best game to the show and he stays in the moment not only because his patrons deserve it, that’s where he wants to be — working his passion, but most important of all because, “it’s all about the work.”

It resonated with me, because, as I looked back in my life, I realized I’ve always felt the same about entrepreneurship — about business building. To me, it has always been “about the work.”

The awards and accolades may come, which they did; and may go, which they also did. But what’s most important is the work itself.

I’ve likened entrepreneurship at one point in time to the work of a sculptor. It’s chiseling a statue that you get to stand back and look at from afar, approach as you chisel some more, and then step back again to gain perspective.

Entrepreneurship has been called part science and part art . . .  but above all else, at least for me, it’s about the work.

In any event, I turned to Bella and I concluded the conversation with:   ”I get it, Sweetie Pie. I really do. But just think for a moment that it might not be about the belt at all, but about what you will have to do to earn it!”

A Postscipt.

We went to the demonstration Saturday morning:  just the two of us.  The place was full of all the language you would expect in karate:  right intentions,  right conduct, and right results.   The belts were proudly displayed on the wall.  But it wasn’t a quick ”gimme.” 

You had to earn it.

She got it . . . at least I think she did!

She still said she wanted to take the karate lessons, but this time, her tone was far from certain, and much less cavaliere.

Of course it may turn out to be true, at the end of the day, that it is all about the belt, but you had better love the work first, or getting the belt is simply not worth the effort.

Apparently, Oprah really is gone and Ellen Degeneres seems to be the beneficiary.

I happened to walk into the bedroom when all of the kids were down a few nights ago, and Janet was pretty much belly laughing at Ellen, who is routinely DVR’d on our Brighthouse recording service.

As I walked in, Janet said something innocuous like, “she’s too much,” without stopping the gaffawing.  I froze in amazement at the irony of it all.

Just a year ago, I believe that I put it on the line . . . or maybe I didn’t really put it on the line, but I thought about putting it on the line anyway:  it’s Oprah or me, baby doll!  Capiche?  This planet isn’t big enough for the two of us in our marriage!!!

But tonight, it was all so very different. Janet appears to have gotten past her love affair with Oprah.  Now, it was all about Ellen.  When Janet would see Oprah DVR’d through the Brighthouse system, she routinely cried; she was awestruck . . . she was mesmerized.  She gasped in over the top ways.

But when it comes to Ellen, it’s not about that at all.

She was actually laughing hysterically with Hillary Duff as the guest.  Seriously – Hillary Duff!  Our current 16 year old loved her as Lizzie McGuire years ago and I even thought she was adorable myself, at least before she made those painful movies.  But that didn’t stop Janet, who was laughing hysterically as she listened to her, all grown up, married with a child — and, of course, under Ellen’s easy care.

And just the other night, we had no choice but to see these 8 and 5 year old phenoms from England who You Tubed an energetic presentation of  rapper Nicki Minaj with a rhyme, rhythm and reason that marveled grown ups. Clearly, I’m glad we had a chance to see it. We laughed and I cried of course, empathizing with the 8 year old’s father whose mother (his wife) nonchalantly handed him a Kleenex while their daughter was on stage with Ellen.

And so I said to Janet, as I sat in amazement at the transformation in less than one year, “well, I guess Oprah is a goner?”

“Well, maybe not a goner, but probably a little out of sight,” she says;  “besides, she became way too elitist towards the end!”

“Elitist?” I asked, absolutely astounded with, I must say, a tinge of schadenfreude interspersed.

“You know what I mean:  just too full of herself,” she confessed.

Too full of herself?  Too full of herself!  I loved it.  The ironies rushed over me with waves of relief.

Frankly, though, I actually liked Oprah, although I do admit that her sense of self at times overpowered the themes she wanted to spotlight. To me, she was the Frank Sinatra of her genre compared to the lighter hearted and more apparently genuine Dean Martin:  more interested in himself than in his audience. 

Nonetheless, Oprah (like Frank) did some mighty work for which we can all be grateful.

And what abot Ellen?  Yes, Ellen?  She’s done her work too, but of a very different nature. From the painful coming out to the hidden days healing her publicly villified inner soul, to her current regenesis radiating the pure joy of her spirit:  her transformation was an enormous delight to witness, even from afar.

It hadn’t occurred to me to place either of them side by side (anymore than to compare Frank Sinatra with Dean Martin), but for the simple fact of Janet’s joyfulness in watching Ellen navigate with fluid ease in and through the conversations she shared with those two young British starlets in a singing frenzy and with Hillary Duff exciting about young marriage and children and the youthful newness of it all – which each of us, with smiles on our faces, can recall.

P.S.  As I was rereading this post to clean up typos, etc., by the way, I had to stop because, from the other side of the house, I heard this cackling that sounded like it was coming from Janet.  I didn’t believe it, but, upon further investigation, it  turned out to be true.  Apparently, Janet was thoroughly engaged in Ellen, one of Ellen’s employees and her employee’s mother on the Queen Mary Halloween Voyage, or something of that nature.  Apparently, it was scary and the way it was depicted doubled Janet over in bed, yet again!  I any event, you get the picture!

P.P.S.  I’m sorry, Oprah.  It appears to be over.  And Ellen, please . . . please . . . please . . .  don’t learn to take yourself too seriously!  It’s happened before, of course, with others.  And it could happen to you.  But, we’re all out here supporting you and doing our best to make sure it doesn’t happen to you.

I had read an article about a year ago. It was actually about myself and the seminar business I had built.

It talked about the fact that I had blamed the demise of my seminar business on the Great Recession.

I had certainly made that statement, but I had not implied, directly or by inference, that the Great Recession was the only reason the seminar business died. There were several other reasons that had nothing at all to do with the circumstances of the Great Recession or the circumstances surrounding the capital structure of the company, which also contributed.

In fact, if I were to rate them all, I would say that the capital structure of the company was third (the subject of prior blogs); the Great Recession was second, and, if the truth be told, the primary fundamental reason for its demise was the disruptive nature of technology.

Yes, the disruptive nature of technology. 

I know that many of you have heard that technology is disruptive.  However, I suspect very few of us have probably sustained or absorbed the direct and immediate impact that a disruptive technology had on our individual businesses. It is akin to the disruptive result of automobiles on the sale of buggy whips ninety (90) years ago, or of cell phones on pay phones, or of DVD’s on VHS’s, or of streaming video on DVD’s, and so forth and so on.

Good grief.  The pages of the Wall Street Journal are blood stained reporting on businesses and industries that have and are perishing in the midst of the technology rapture.

I just didn’t realize mine would be one of them.

I remember attending a convention of the Factoring industry some fifteen (15) years ago and commenting from the podium that the internet would fundamentally change their businesses. Truthfully, I really didn’t know how that would occur. I just knew that it was a powerful instrument and that it had to result in some influence on the way they operated their businesses. Of course, in fact, it did, even though I was met with skepticism at the time, and didn’t honestly know what I was talking about anyway.

All of us know how price comparisons are occurring. We know that the internet is incredibly efficient at delivering information, whether it’s on branded goods in our favorite grocery store, or on mortgage rates or insurance, or on footwear delivered overnight, and so forth and so on.

Similarly, I knew that the internet, over the next fifteen (15) years, would have an effect on our seminar business.

But what I didn’t know is in what ways. In the beginning, we saw some effect, but not terribly substantial and certainly not producing any significant result. As a matter of fact, the best years we ever had were from 2003 to 2007, when everyone in America was printing money in their businesses and the internet was a distant disrupter.

But, with each passing year, I saw more and more significance in the influence the internet was having in lots of different ways. However, it wasn’t so much the internet as it was the development of a derivative product that I hadn’t honestly thought about in the early 2000′s:  the evolution of search.

Let me explain.

Our seminars sold information. We did not sell tangible products; we sold information.

Information is very valuable if it is proprietary. Indeed, it continued to remain valuable even after the development of the internet because the information, although available, was buried in the gigabytes of information which may or may not have been accessible and certainly not in any recognizable or communicable format.  And, unfortunately, our information did not have the imprimatur of earning participants a diploma or a university degree.

Therefore, while the internet might have been somewhat disruptive to our business, it was not substantially harmful since it just simply proved that, in a sea of information, the most efficient way to obtain relevant information was to attend a proprietary seminar where it would be created, packaged and delivered cogently.

On the other hand, what happened in the later years of the seminar business was the development of search engine technology. Each of the search engines became more and more powerful and acute in identifying information that was relevant to the subject at hand. Therefore, by 2007, if you wanted to search for information on conducting a short sale, or an options straddle, or a triple net lease transaction, you could do it with a few strokes of your fingers and you would have more information than you could digest in a month.

It had the following attributes:

• Everything was free.
• It was comprehensive.
• Some information had agendas, but much information did not.
• At the end of the day, while some information was worthless, a great deal of the information was valuable.
• You could do it from the privacy of your own home without anybody being involved. 

And, by the way, did I say that it was free?

The Internet was disruptive, for sure.

But search technology was even more disruptive because it enabled a consumer to pinpoint information which was relevant to them, pay nothing, and digest the information in a useful way.

Fast forward one year.

My wife, Janet and I were getting ready for a Halloween Party. She wanted to do a spider cake. She went online, stroked the appropriate terms, and ended up with a recipe, not only in print, but also with a video narrator. She had her recipe in less than ten (10) minutes and, guess what . . . it was absolutely free. . .and tasted great!

Welcome to an era in which information is valuable, searchable . . . and free!

At the end of the day, the internet, with its culture of free exchange, free information, free communication, combined with a communality and culture of free sharing, made the business of selling information virtually impossible.

The seminars that made us the 800 lb. guerilla were “How to” seminars. They were legitimate and real. They were valuable, constructive and useful. However, they required a business model to make them work. The internet, combined with search and consolidated with the joint culture, ultimately killed that business model, at least in any format I was prepared to accept.

That does not mean that there are not other information-driven business models that work or may work.  It does mean, however, that mine no longer did. 

Seminars were not dead on arrival. But they ultimately became dead on delivery.

Consider my seminar business another case study in the annals of Darwinian economics relevant to each of us as we play out future scenarios for the businesses each of us runs!

I translate it loosely as:  “In the middle of the walk of my life, I found myself in shadowy woods where the way going forward was somewhat murky.”

So, as I have been blogging about issues political and economic, I thought it appropriate to take a short reprieve and comment just a wee bit, if it’s OK, on thoughts personal and introspective.

It’s often been said and it certainly is a cliche among Americans that hindsight is 20/20 and, to some extent, it really is. It’s 20/20 when a decision is binary, since there are only two decisions to be made.  And it’s especially true when we then find out that the one decision we made was the wrong one.

However, because we don’t live in binary realities, we are not necessarily sure what would have happened if we had taken the other choice. If it’s binary, we may be able to guess somewhat and if the decision we made turned out to be pretty bad, it seems to be somewhat probable that the other of the two decisions would have been better. That’s not true in itself, of course, but it appears somewhat logical, or at least regressive.

On the other hand, if in fact we had more than two choices (which is really the way it is in life since we rarely only have two choices) and we chose one which turned out to be bad, we really have no idea what would have happened if we had made countless other decisions. In fact, another one of those decisions might have been a shut out, and yet another might have been a home run (hopefully without taxing the metaphor).

Nonetheless, hindsight does tend to be, in general terms, 20/20.

In the moment, that’s not the case at all, of course.

In the moment, we make decisions looking forward and we make decisions based upon the best information we have at our disposal at that particular point in time. Sometimes we make good ones and other times we don’t.

I was listening when I initially dictated this blog to former President George Bush’s interview with Oprah Winfrey and I was truly in awe at the peacefulness of the ex-President’s posture on decisions which he had made, based upon the information available to him at that time. He freely admitted that some of them were absolutely wrong and others were dead on correct.  Regardless, he made them with the information at his disposal.  If subsequent events turned out not to be accurate, so be it. But those were the decisions he made and that was the information he had at the time.

It’s that peacefulness that got me thinking about Dante and where we find ourselves at different times in our lives . . .where I find myself at this time in my life.

I can personally say that, with a law practice as my 1.0 and Dynetech as my 2.0, I’m working through what 3.0 might look like. The via is, as Dante declares, somewhat “Smarrita.”

But I can say that I’m walking that road searching carefully in the underbrush for where the path leads with eyes intent, and a saber perched to make sure I clear out anything ahead which might make discerning the path more difficult.

The process is a combination of discovering, uncovering, clearing, and creating . . . the future.  And whether it happens in the spring of youthfulness, now past for me, or “in the middle of the walk of my life”, the process is the same.

For Dante, it was his time to redefine himself.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s why Dante’s passage feels particularly relevant to me right now.

So, it occurred to me, for today’s blog, that I switch to a meat and potatoes topic and talk just a bit on the functional components of an operating business.

A business, large or small, only has four major parts to it. If it’s a small business, those parts can be combined into one person. If it’s a large business, those parts can be subdivided, sub-subdivided, and sub-sub-subdivided into multiple parts. However, at the end of the day, there are still only four major parts to any business.

A business consists of: marketing, sales, production, and operations.

Every one of those is critical to a business operating successfully, and therefore has to be done by somebody even if, with a sole owner, one-person shop, it’s the same person.

A quick review:

• Marketing is the process whereby you identify and communicate to a prospect database, as qualified and targeted as you possibly can.
• Sales is the process of converting those prospects into customers or clients of your business with an eye towards an on-going relationship, rather than the transactional sale.
• Production is the process of developing, delivering and fulfilling the marketing expectations of the product or service you offer.
• Operations is the process of supporting the marketing, sales and production processes, with such things as facilities, equipment, legal, accounting, and so forth.

In a small business, one or just a few people tend to address all functions. And that is perfectly okay. However, when they do, they need to realize that all four of those functions need to be addressed. From my experience, for example, the owner or owners of the business tend to be strongest in a particular function. I have met people who are incredibly strong in marketing and sales, but who can’t fulfill to save their lives. I’ve also met an owner or owners who are exceptional at designing and delivering a product, but can’t market or sell. In truth, each one of those functions is a complete function unto itself and has to be handled as such.

In a larger organization, on the other hand, the challenge is exactly the opposite. Each of those functions is an equal function. However, the corporate culture develops through a process of bifurcation so that each one of those continues to subdivide until the corporate hierarchy becomes more important than the underlying four functions. It’s at that point that the organization is functioning for its own survival, not to meet the needs of the customers or the marketplace.

I’ll return to the more extended essay blogs in the next few weeks (for better or worse).  But, in the meantime, this is a short blog with a simple and defined message.  Each of those four functions should have one or more individuals driving the results. An organization simply cannot survive or grow if all four functions are not handled or are not handled properly.

There is probably no one who executed that with greater aplomb than Barrack Obama in his bid for the presidency.

As you all know, Sentator Barrack Obama had had an extremely shallow political history and had been a senator for a relatively short period of time. Other than some celebrity showings within the Democratic party as an up and comer, he had done virtually nothing and had abstained more than he had voted on anything.

So, as he began to send out his feelers for a run for the presidency, the primary objection he got from his own Democratic constituency related to his tenure in office and the fact that it was not his turn–it was Hilary’s turn–and besides, he was a young man and had plenty of time to forge a career in the future.

Of course, as we all know, Barrack would have none of that.

He therefore crafted a simple platform which belongs in a text book on the Mastery of Sales.

The only bullet point of my five point strategy I want to spend this particular blog on was his sense of urgency.

As anybody who has ever been involved in sales knows, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

After all, we all know that procrastination is the enemy of a sale.

Once the sale is secured, the chances of it being rescinded now may be more than a sale which is not secured and closed at a later time, but the overall results will be better.

In other words, if I close 100% today and 25% rescind, I end up with 75%. If I permit time (and relationship) to elapse and end up closing 75% now with a full lesser 10% cancelling out later, I end up with 65%. Better the current sale subject to a rescission, rather than procrastination of the sale subject to the passage of time.

In short, the passage of time is the enemy of a sale.

Now, of course, there are exceptions to that rule. So, for example, the greater the likelihood of relationship, the greater the desire to procrastinate today for the longevity of the sale tomorrow.

On the other a hand, the greater the transactional component of the sale today, the greater the likelihood that procrastination will eliminate the sale tomorrow.

In other words: when it comes to relationship selling, slower is better. When it comes to transactional selling, faster is better.  Who among us, after all, can’t distinguish between a marriage on the one side, and a Friday night date on the other? 

None of us can be that old. . .or inept. . .at least I would hope!

In light of that, it’s really that simple.  Really!

In President Obama’s case, the greatest objection he had was not all of the innuendo about this religion, or his place of birth, or his race, or even his politics:  all of which, by the way, he handled masterfully.

The greatest objection was to his youth and inexperience which, at a very guttural level, had people feeling like he was an interloper, stealing Hilary’s thunder and co-opting her well-earned reward in the process.

So, when it came right down to it, his campaign, centered on what he described as the “compelling urgency of the now” was nothing short of brilliant. The essence of any sale, especially transactional – the election – is its expeditious conclusion.  He needed the votes in every primary;  he needed the votes in the Democratic convention. And he needed the votes in the election.

Of course, in driving the compelling urgency of the now, and in meticulously explaining why he simply could not stand by the sidelines and watch this country disintegrate before his very eyes; as he intellectually and emotionally articulated the many reasons why he was forced to tip his hat and to throw it in the ring; as he made it clear that all bets are off because today is what matters and tomorrow won’t matter at all if today doesn’t get handled . . . he not only neutralized the objection that it wasn’t his time, but he also ejactulated it into a rallying cry for the power of change–radical change . . . today!

Truthfully, if there really are only five essential elements to a brilliant sale I discussed with my blog on 7 year old Isabella, one of which is the sense of urgency, Barrack Obama masterfully handled it.

On the other hand, as President Obama has been discovering since the election, there is a difference between a transactional sale and a relationship sale, as most of us with histories (or simple lives) know.  And, unfortunately, mid-term elections for political parties usually represent the delineation between the two.

President Clinton, a closet Republican, had his way in the White House in a way so unfortuante it tainted what was otherwise a powerful presidency.

President Obama also had his way, except his was with the American people in November 2008.  But the question we are all asking ourselves is did he still love us in the morning? 

And will he still love us tomorrow. . .when the mid-terms are over?

And then, you leave the meeting, encounter, Starbuck’s coffee, or otherwise, with the best of intentions in moving forward, and then something happens. I’m not exactly sure what it is; but alas: nothing happens.

After the meeting, I write an e-mail summarizing the conversation and identifying what the open items are that each of us is going to be pursuing.

And then….nothing happens! Literally…nothing!

It’s an old Supremes song.

I tweak them a couple of times by letting them know what I have been doing to pursue my open items from that particular conversation and giving them my progress along the way. I do that a couple of times with no questions asked and then, I summarize it a week or two weeks later, letting them know my progress and asking them where they are in the pursuit.

And, again…nothing.

And then I start tweaking them more specifically until I finally start sending them e-mails and even leaving voice mails on their cell phones asking them to let me know or to at least to give me a call.

Guess what?

You guessed it – nothing. I get no response at all.

Occasionally, the smarter ones throw me a bone once in a while to keep me in the game and to let me know what they are doing. But, when it’s all said and done, they just simply fade farther and farther away and they ultimately are gone, doing–you guessed it–nothing!

I don’t know what to make of it. It’s just remarkable to me.

What’s even more remarkable is the fact that even when I connect to individuals that I have known for 20 years . . . or I reconnect with them . . . it’s as if the behavior just simply repeats itself over and over again. It’s the old adage that a leopard truly can’t change its spots.

I had a conversation with a very high level CEO. We did a morning coffee together. The CEO had gone through tremendous personal travails and I reached out to the CEO who by that point was an ex-CEO. There was enormous gratitude and appreciation. And she expressed an incredible level of satisfaction in the exchange.

And there was also a clear commitment to get together after her family took a much needed vacation together to rehabilitate.

You know what?  I never got a call ever that.

What is that all about?

What is the process by which an individual is prepared to commit in personam and abdicate in general.

I didn’t get it when I was 21… and I really don’t get it today.

The adage is so very simple.  Do what you say you are going to do.  Why is that so difficult to get?