MINDSET · RISK
COVID gave you no warning. AI is giving you plenty.
The owners who reinvent early get to choose what happens next. Everyone else waits for the market to choose for them.
The company that binned the future
Kodak built the first digital camera.
Read that again.
One of their own people invented it and demonstrated it to the board. And the board said: "Bin it."
Why? Because Kodak sold film and chemicals. A camera that didn't need film was a threat to the business they already had. So they buried it.
Everyone knows how that story ends.
Kodak didn't lose because they missed the change. They saw it coming and decided it wasn't their problem.
That's the most expensive mistake an owner can make. Don't make it.
Complaining won't stop it
Remember the taxi industry when Uber arrived?
They lobbied. They protested. They complained to anyone who'd listen.
Uber arrived anyway.
Same story with hotels and Airbnb. Same story with retailers and online shopping. Same story with TV and radio advertising.
Whingeing to the government, the media or your mates at the pub changes NOTHING. The market doesn't care how long you've been doing it the old way.
Disruption doesn't ask permission. Get on the front foot or get run over.
COVID and AI: two different storms, same lesson
Think back to 2020.
COVID turned business upside down almost overnight. No warning. No time to plan.
- Customers stopped walking in the door
- Teams had to work from home
- Online ordering went from "nice to have" to survival
- Supply chains fell over
Here's what I saw. The owners who already had systems, clean numbers and a bit of flexibility adapted fast. The ones running everything out of their own head scrambled. Some never recovered.
One of my Business Owners Taking Action members runs a café and delicatessen. When the doors effectively closed, they didn't sit and wait for it to blow over. They moved fast into home delivery and catering.
Here's the best bit. The catering side didn't disappear when the lockdowns ended. It's now a solid, ongoing part of the business.
They didn't just survive the disruption. They came out of it with a better business.
Now look at AI.
It's changing:
- How customers find you
- How quickly a competitor can quote, reply and deliver
- What a small team can get done in a day
- What admin and back-office work actually costs
Same kind of shake-up. One big difference.
COVID hit you without warning. AI is giving you warning RIGHT NOW.
You can see this one coming. That's a gift. Most owners will waste it.
It's like fixing the roof. You do it while the sun's shining, not when the rain is already coming through the ceiling.
Use the warning. Start now.
"My business has worked for 20 years. It'll keep working."
WRONG!
Your last 20 years are history. A buyer doesn't pay for history.
A buyer pays for the NEXT five years.
When a buyer looks at your business, one of the first things they ask is: is this industry growing or shrinking? If your category is being disrupted and you've done nothing about it, they see risk. And risk means a lower price, harder terms or no deal at all.
The flip side?
A business that's already reinvented itself, that's using the new tools and riding the change instead of fighting it, is exactly what buyers lean in for.
Build it as if you're going to keep it forever but could sell it tomorrow.
Is your business next? Six-question check
Be honest. Tick each one that applies.
- Could a customer get what you sell faster, cheaper or straight from their phone?
- Does a big slice of your revenue come from ONE customer?
- Does almost all your new work arrive through ONE channel?
- Are you doing your admin, quoting and follow-up exactly the same way you did five years ago?
- If a sharp competitor started tomorrow with AI and no legacy baggage, would they undercut you?
- Would a buyer look at your industry and see decline instead of growth?
Tick even one and you've got work to do. Tick three or more and you're already behind.
Notice how many of those come down to a single point of failure.
The most dangerous number in business is one.
Want to build a business that gives you real freedom — and could one day sell for real value? The cohort group is where owners start. Places are limited, so get in early.
Become the disruptor, not the disrupted
In my mentoring groups I challenge every member to "uberise" their own category.
In other words, work out how someone could put you out of business. Then do it to yourself first.
Here's how.
1. Attack your own business.
Sit down and ask: "If I started from scratch tomorrow to compete with me, what would I do differently?" Write the answers down. That list is your reinvention plan.
2. Test one thing this month.
Don't try to reinvent everything at once. Pick ONE process (quoting, follow-up, bookings, reporting) and try a new tool or a new way of doing it. Small, fast, measurable.
3. Put reinvention on the agenda. Permanently.
It's not a one-off project. Review it every quarter, just like your numbers. The owners who survived COVID best weren't lucky. They were already in the habit of changing.
"For things to change, first I must change." — attributed to Jim Rohn
Become the disruptor, not the disrupted.
Why you can't do it on your own
Here's the problem with reinventing your own business.
You're too close to it.
You've done it the same way for so long that you can't see the opportunities sitting right in front of you. Nobody can. It's like trying to read the label from inside the bottle.
That's why I built my Business Owners Taking Action groups.
- No competing businesses in the same group, so you can put real ideas and real numbers on the table
- Members challenge each other and hold each other accountable for actually doing the work
- Expert speakers bring in ideas you'd never hear inside your own four walls
- Many heads working on YOUR business, not just yours
In-person and online groups are both available.
Change your thinking and you change the business.
Join A Cohort Mentoring Group
The biggest mistake business owners make is leaving it too long to start preparing. Do not be that owner.
Take action now.
A very sound prediction – it’s so easy to get stuck in a mindset that sometimes you miss the opportunities available. This is where the benefit comes from working with other people – groups are so much more creative than individuals, and people outside your business often see ideas for improvement that you have been blinded to from spending too much time on the inside.
You are absolutely right Steve! History is full of instances where possibly ‘complacency’ has lead to missed opportunity. Eveyone knows what happened to Kodak due to the digital camera. What most people don’t know is that a Kodak employee created and demonstrated the first digital camera. But the Kodak board said ‘bin it!’ They didn’t want to know because they were a chemical company selling chemicals to the photographic industry! Well, they learned the hard way!