Monday, July 25, 2011

Gomo Part 1


With the extremes of weather over the last few months, many of you are excited about all the incoming calls and keeping your Techs so very busy that they received large checks with oodles of overtime. The money is rolling in and you are so excited. You can pay down those “nasty” creditors, your suppliers, your advertising bills, your telephone bill and maybe even yourself. Oh what a rush we get from the business of extreme weather. Why it’s almost as good as that rush you got last fall and early winter when the phones were ringing as your customers wanted that new system in before the end of the year to get that tax credit and utility rebates.

But let’s take another look at the nine months or so. You finished the year with great sales because of the federal tax credits and utility rebates. Then came January and February with huge invoices from suppliers and once again you are in the 60-90 day overdue to most of them. The calls are coming in from creditors and you are giving excuses. Certainly some may be legit, but you are just putting them off to get some breathing room. Then came the weather. Heavy rains, scorching temperatures, oh were they ever manna from heaven. Guess what, come August and September you will be right back into the 60-90 days behind on your bills, not paying yourself, and in the dumps again.

Do you remember one of the definitions of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over the same way and expecting different results. A while back, I had read an article which called this type of behavior, “Gomo”, or going thru the motions. Sorry I cannot recall the author. I should have saved the article along with the hundreds I already have. I thought I might find the article on the web but the search came up with 526,000 results. Too much information, although the first page of results came up with the Urban dictionary definition of GOMO as “A homosexual who is also geeky, or into geeky things.” This was not what I want to rant about today. Then there was the use of GOMO by Susan B. Wilson on Execstratagies.com of “Get Over it; Move On!” Once again not exactly what I was looking for as an accurate definition of the point I want to make.

The frustration I have with owners in our industries is the fact that many, many of them are just going through the motions of being a business owner. They are just doing the easy day to day stuff and not making the plans and decisions to change their businesses into the high income potential that most all of them have the capability of becoming. Quit the Gomo mentality and move your business forward. Learn how to be a true business owner and not just a supervisor of day to day activities.

The picture is William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress depicting Inmates at Bedlam Asylum