That’s not meant to be an insult. It simply means that if you in business you are like a shark in that you’re either moving forwards or you’re dead (no not literally).

This is what people just don’t understand about business. NOTHING STANDS STILL. Markets change, laws change, expectations change & many other things also change. Think how the internet & computers have changed over the last ten or so years. It’s just incredible.

But what is even more incredible is that many local businesses wonder why they aren’t making any money using out of date techniques.

I remember once reading in the local paper about a convenience store owner who strongly objected to a supermarket being built near his shop. He was worried that it would steel his customers. He would be absolutely right because there is no way any privately owned convenience store would be able to compete with a supermarket no matter how smart the owner was.

Just as a side note. I can’t think of any reason why anyone would want to run a convenience store especially in this day and age. I you are reading this and you are thinking of starting a local business in Dorset then for goodness sake don’t buy a convenience store. I’ve never known anyone to make any real money from them.

Okay back to the topic at hand. If you want to survive in business then you need to be fast adapting. The great thing about having your own website is that if you decide that something needs changing then its normally very quick and simple to do and if your doing it yourself it’s also free.

Looking at trends is a must and if you can spot them you have a license to print money.

I will cover more about trend spotting in a later post but for now just remember that you need to make your business flexible.

Just in case you’re wondering, the shop keeper should have adapted his store to sell things that the supermarket did not offer and would have no interest in offering i.e. specialize in something.