Domination!

My son Kenny is a freshman at Sonoma State which sponsored an Ultimate Frisbee tournament  this last weekend.  If you are not familiar with Ultimate Frisbee, think of a passing league football game played with a Frisbee instead of a football.  Included in the competition were the likes of UC Berkeley, Stanford, Cal State Humboldt, and other colleges.  Kenny got to play a few games on the Varsity  team knows as the “Grapes” (wine-country humor), and a few more on the JV “Crepes” team.  Sonoma State was a polite host, opting not to win its own tournament…

When the competition was completed on Sunday, Kenny was completely exhausted as he had “left it all on the field.” His fatigue at the conclusion allowed me the rare opportunity to feign a pose of domination over him as shown in the picture above. Little did I know that the act was caught on camera and exposed to the masses on Facebook and now here as well.

But how about domination in the business world? So many business owners are thinking solely of survival right now, not domination, having been humbled over these past two years of economic turbulence. Most small and medium-sized businesses won’t even entertain expansion under these circumstancs. Yet these difficult conditions do allow a window of opportunity if the competition is financially injured, fatigued, or lost its will to fight, causing them to close shop or drastically curtail operation. Conversely, the stronger competitors have better weathered the storm and could benefit from lessened competition when/if the economy improves.

Will the economy improve? Of course it will, but perhaps not as quick or robust as we would all hope. I believe that the recovery would be enhanced and expedited if Congress was to extend the Bush tax cuts. B2B CFO® Founder and CEO Jerry Mills had much more to say about that on FOX News recently:

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As the economy improves, there will be opportunities in the marketplace for the remaining “survival of the fittest” businesses. The “Recovery of 2011” (yes you heard the term here first) will certainly benefit companies that survived the Great Recession, but especially those that have solid business plans in place, ready to pounce on market opportunities as they occur.  Market domination for these strong companies may not be that far fetched, and may not be that far away.

My last newsletter discussed the mechanics of assembling, monitoring and acting on a business plan as the year unfolds. Let me know if you’d like a copy.