Have you seen the TV program Bar Rescue? The show is in the same genre as the Restaurant Impossible and Hotel Impossible. Customer service based businesses are failing and someone from the outside comes into to save them.
Bar Rescue is a favorite show of mine and not because I’m a bar fly but rather because at one time I was one of three partners in a manufacturing business. I know what Jon is dealing with.
In my role as Vice President of Engineering I had to make business decisions on a 24/7 basis. I had to hire and sometimes fire engineers and designers. As VP I had to make sure that the equipment we designed and sold worked. I interfaced with customers, employees and technical issues on a constant basis.
As partners we dealt with cash-flow issues on a weekly or even daily basis. We would meet in our board room and hammer out the details. The three of us each had our specific roles to carry out. Each role carried responsibilities that supported the entire framework of the business.
I regularly made business trips across the U.S. and outside of the country to start-up the equipment. I was (and had to be) a major force behind our businesses’ multi-million dollar sales revenues. That was the only way to keep the business afloat and more than just a blip on the market place map we covered. So, I understand where Jon is coming from.
Jon Taffer is the force behind a Bar Rescue. You can tell that he knows his stuff. He knows what it takes to make a bar successful. He knows when to finesse and when to pound his fist to get a response. He will raise his voice to grab people’s attention away from their egos. As you watch the show you will see bar owners and their business partners who have no clue as to what to do. And because of their in-the-way egos they are deeply in debt when they call Jon in.
From appearances these bar owners seem to think that the bar will run itself, that people will naturally just come in off the street for a drink. But the numbers, the businesses’ accounting books Taffer shows them does not project wishful thinking. The numbers show reality. And that is why I like this program and why I like business – numbers don’t lie. Reality is the key ingredient to any success.
Now, our government is like a huge bar that needs rescuing from its managers. We the People, sadly, are like its troubled and overworked employees who do not have the say or the power to make the changes needed. We see the mess and try to do everything we can to make it better. But we reach a point where we see that management does not have a clue. Management wants the perks but not the responsibilities. If we speak up we are patted on the head and then kicked in the butt by our representatives.
Yes, there are voices of reality in government just as there are on the Bar rescue program. But those few voices are drowned out by huge political egos.
Now, I wish that we had a Government Rescue program. Washington’s decisions degrade our lives, our liberty daily. Those decisions wear us out. The U.S. government is out of control and rapidly growing deep into debt. Help!
To fix the debt issue Obama, like a poor business manager, wants to publicly litigate for more tax revenue from Americans by using words and phrases like “fair share,” and “social justice.” Just work harder he tells us.
Obama is not a hands-on guy ~ he is an attorney ~ a one-time professor of Constitutional law ~ with no clue as to how to run a business let alone a national economy. Elizabeth Warren is of the same cloth ~ all hyperbole and ego but no substance ~ both are true politicians.
As a nation we have more attorneys than business people in lead positions in our government. Is it any wonder that these attorneys are more concerned about “rights” and about jabbering on about what they can do for us if we hand over our liberty and our money?
What about the liberation of our human flourishing by embracing economic reality and making wise business decisions? Instead of new laws which constrain each of us and kick us in the butt we should be set free to do what we do best thereby generating increased revenues through successful and time-tested business practices.
The Free Market ~ people like you and me ~ already know how to deal with reality. What we need now is for someone to come in and toss the current “Progressive” management and to help us turn this nation around.
