DIVERSITY is a BIG word -- With A HUGE Business IMPACT

Second thought! Just in case. YOU or someone you personally know may fit the following picture of success which may carry too much risk for comfort.

You can sit back and simply enjoy the day. Let tomorrow take care of itself. Can't you just hear it? I've got my money "salted" away in a safe place. Getting great returns. No risk! Where? I'm invested in the dot.com firms of the future..... remember the bubble that burst?

YOUR BUSINESS

Obviously, you get the point. There is little need to bash the dot.com failures. Our goal is YOUR business. Your future expansions for growth.

EXPERIENCE is an expensive teacher. There are BETTER resources. Some of us have learned in the School of Hard Knocks. At least YOU can benefit by knowing some of our mistakes which we freely expose for your perusal.

Yes, most of our mistakes were NOT smart. Could have been easily corrected. Most 'goofs' are so obvious AFTER the fact it's embarassing to tell anyone.

DIVERSITY Is KEY --

Is that just a nice "sounding" word? Only to those who FAIL to understand it's HUGE impact. SUDDENLY! Almost an Overnight kick.... your financial well being can be GONE.

Many of us have been there. All of our business LINKED to ONE account. Are you in that position now? I hear you loud and clear. You are saying, "I'm making good money and business is great. Why should I change?"

If that is the case, YOU are NOT in control. Unless you have a service or product without equal or competition, YOU are at risk. Simply ask... if my ONE customer or my major customer GOES AWAY tomorrow... what happens to my business?

Are your equipment debts personally guaranteed? Is your home at risk? Do you have a long-term office/warehouse lease? Bank loans?

OUR EXPERIENCE

Yes, I was fortunate and survived. At the time, I had several businesses not dependent on each other. Regardless,the impact and surprise income loss was real.

For 10 years it was wonderful. Profits were basically guaranteed. A major Insurance company needed "outside" typists. Large companies do strange things. Head-count! Move staff (human resource) cost to "service" overhead expense.

Situations change! Buyers of services RETIRE. Management gets promoted to a new location. Offices consolidate. DOWNsize. UPsize. Go out of business! Bankrupt yet still oweing you money that will never come.

Most of the above happened! Our "connection" moved. I had no idea the company was going to suddenly NO LONGER need our services.

It's happening around us every day. Technology! Yesterday is gone -- history. New ways of doing business. Automation. Push-button society. Home based workers.

In a FLASH! ONE day! Our business (95%) was gone. We had NO warning at all before the doors shut in our face.

WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED?

To capsule, we were able to use the equipment in our other businesses. Our lease on the space had NOT been renewed. Our own staff was transferred within. We lucked out!!

However, I "shudder" to think of the consequences that could have forced most folks out of business.

Had we signed another 5-year lease, the cost would have exceeded our PROFIT for the prior 10 years.

Equipment leases would still hang over our heads. Staff? Their jobs would have been gone in a flash.

YOUR CHALLENGE

Step back and look carefully at your business risks. Don't assume anything. Your "good old" boy network has NO guarantees.

Make DIVERSITY your #1 priority in 2005. Add new clients. Add new products. Quickly reduce your RISK away from any controlling entity. Seek to make 10% a TOP line maximum dependence on any one source of income.

Large buyers have been known to absorb ALL of a major manufacturer's production. As an astute business executive, YOU can see the END in sight. Don't let it happen.

Your customer now CONTROLS your business. Profits are no longer your decision. Expect the "squeeze" to intensify!

Too often, we can't see the forest for the trees. Same experience happens to a small service business, too.

ACTION TIP: Best advice is simple. DIVERSIFY! Never allow ONE client to OWN your business. 10% is a good MAXIMUM for any single buyer. Reduce YOUR risk. Add new clients or new products as quickly as possible.

Don Monteith spent 32 years in the Staffing Business. His firm placed thousands of job candidates in their dream job. Today, he shares his expertise. Learn more by visiting his website at: http://www.HowToGetYourDreamJob.com

In The News:

Yahoo! News: Top Stories

Palestinians survey a kindergarten destroyed after an Israeli air strike in Gaza January 8, 2009. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters)AP - The U.N. Security Council called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, but an intense bombardment of missiles from Israeli jets and helicopters early Friday and a barrage of Hamas rockets indicated there may be no quick end to the fighting.



Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock) votes to recommend the impeachment of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to the House during an Illinois House Impeachment Committee hearing Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009, in Springfield, Ill. The committee voted unanimously to recommend impeachment putting the matter before the full house.  (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)AP - Gov. Rod Blagojevich faces almost certain impeachment by the Illinois House, a historic step that would trigger a trial to determine whether the Democratic governor should be tossed out of office.



Pay Equity pioneer Lily Ledbetter addresses the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008 file photo. Democrats are ushering in what they believe will be a new labor-friendly era in Washington with House votes on two bills aimed at helping women fight pay discrimination in the workplace. The House was to vote on the bills Friday Jan. 9, 2009, and they could reach Barack Obama's desk soon after he enters the White House.  One of the bills, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, is a response to a 2007 Supreme Court decision that made it more difficult to sue over past pay discrimination.  (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds, FILE)AP - Democrats are ushering in what they believe will be a new labor-friendly era in Washington with House votes on two bills aimed at helping women fight pay discrimination in the workplace.



A sign instructs job seekers at the California Employment Development Department in Sunnyvale, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009. The country lost nearly 2 million jobs through November and more bad news is expected this week when the government releases data on weekly jobless claims and December unemployment. No matter how bad those numbers are, and economists expect at least another 500,000 jobs were lost last month, the pain is stretching into 2009.  (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)AP - Trying to survive a deepening recession, employers are cutting their work forces to the bone, leaving more Americans unemployed and with dim prospects of finding a new job any time soon.



In this Monday, Dec. 29, 2008 file image provided by Greenpeace, coal ash slurry left behind in a containment pond near the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant is shown  in Harriman, Tenn., after the dyke at left broke Dec. 22, 2008. Millions of tons of toxic coal ash is piling up in power plant ponds in 32 states, a practice the federal government has long recognized as a risk to human health and the environment but has left unregulated. (AP Photo/Greeenpeace, Wade Payne)AP - Millions of tons of toxic coal ash is piling up in power plant ponds in 32 states, a practice the federal government has long recognized as a risk to human health and the environment but has left unregulated.



In this Dec. 5, 2006 file photo, Leon Panetta, then a member of the Iraq Study Group, walks into a Washington hotel.    (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)AP - President-elect Barack Obama is completing his national security team by announcing his unusual choices for CIA director and a national intelligence director who may face tough Senate confirmation questioning over how he confronted the Indonesian military when civilian massacres were occurring in East Timor.



In this Dec. 1, 2008 file photo, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, second left, speaks as Vice President-elect Joe Biden, left, President-elect Barack Obama; and Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton, far right, listen at a news conference in Chicago.  (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)AP - Just minutes after George W. Bush took the oath of office eight years ago, he signed papers formally nominating 13 Cabinet-level officials. Several hours later, the Senate, meeting in a special Saturday session, confirmed seven Cabinet secretaries, including the heads of the key posts at State, Treasury and Defense.



US President-elect Barack Obama speaks on the economy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Obama proposed tax cuts and a green energy push to avert economic disaster, but drew a skeptical reaction in Congress to aspects of his huge stimulus package.(AFP/Mandel Ngan)AP - Lawmakers are under orders to finish action on President-elect Barack Obama's nearly $800 billion economic recovery plan by mid-February. But already it is plain that a set of serious fissures need to be bridged if the bill is to be completed within five weeks.



Freida Pinto backstage with the best picture award for 'Slumdog Millionaire' at the 14th Annual Critics' Choice Awards on Thursday Jan. 8, 2009 in Santa Monica, Calif. (AP Photo/Dan Steinberg)AP - The critics have spoken, and "Slumdog Millionaire" is their final answer.



Florida coach Urban Meyer is doused during the fourth quarter of the BCS Championship NCAA college football game against Oklahoma in Miami, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009. Florida defeated Oklahoma 24-14. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)AP - The game defied expectations. Tim Tebow fulfilled them. He rescued No. 1 Florida, running through and throwing over No. 2 Oklahoma for a 24-14 victory Thursday night that gave the Gators their second BCS championship in three years.



Jaclyn Holt (R) fills out an application form at a job fair organized by the New Hampshire Employment Security agency in Salem, New Hampshire December 17, 2008. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)Reuters - U.S. employers probably cut the most jobs in at least 34 years last month as the global economic crisis gathered pace and moves by policy makers took time to filter through to struggling companies.



An Israeli soldier covers his ears after firing a mortar mounted on an armoured personal carrier (APC) towards Gaza from its position outside the northern Gaza Strip January 9, 2009. (Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)Reuters - Israel pushed ahead with its two-week-old offensive in the Gaza Strip, ignoring a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.



Reuters - A report being released on Friday alleges that the U.S. Treasury has failed to reveal its strategy for stabilizing the financial system, not answered questions asked by a government watchdog, and has done nothing to help struggling homeowners, the Wall Street Journal said.

A man works near a pressure gauge at a district heating plant in Skopje January 8, 2009. (Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters)Reuters - Europe sought a swift restoration of gas supplies on Friday after striking a deal with Moscow on monitoring gas shipments via Ukraine that have been halted by a pricing dispute with Kiev.



People taking the Long Island Foreclosure Tour arrive at a foreclosed home for sale in New Hyde Park, New York in this May 17, 2008 file photo. Citigroup could soon agree to principles that would let troubled borrowers save their homes through bankruptcy, sources familiar with the talks said on Thursday, while industry groups are easing their opposition to the plan. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)Reuters - Financial giant Citigroup Inc will support a proposal in Congress to rewrite U.S. bankruptcy law to help troubled mortgage borrowers avoid foreclosure, Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said on Thursday.



Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich gestures as he announces former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris as his choice to fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama during a news conference in Chicago, Illinois December 30, 2008. (Frank Polich/Reuters)Reuters - A legislative committee on Thursday recommended the impeachment of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, citing widespread abuse of power including allegations he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.



Timothy Geithner (R), pictured in Chicago, November 24, 2008. (Jeff Haynes/Reuters)Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama's economic team is urgently overhauling the $700 billion financial rescue package to broaden its scope beyond Wall Street, The Washington Post reported on Friday.



Usama al-Kini, Al Qaeda's operations chief in Pakistan, is pictured in this undated FBI Most Wanted photograph. Al-Kini, also known as Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam, and a top aide are believed to be dead, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on January 8, 2009, in what appeared to be the latest results of a campaign targeting the militant group's leadership. Operations chief al-Kini was thought responsible for attacks, including the bombing of a Marriott hotel in Islamabad that killed 55 people in September, and an unsuccessful attempt to kill former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was later assassinated in a separate attack, the official said. (FBI/Handout/Reuters)Reuters - Al Qaeda's operations chief in Pakistan and a top aide are believed to be dead, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on Thursday, in what appeared to be the latest results of a campaign targeting the militant group's leadership.



An Israeli army tank takes position on a hill at the border between Israel and the northern Gaza Strip on January 8, 2009. Israel was under intense pressure Friday to end its two-week-old offensive in the Gaza Strip after the UN Security Council called for an immediate ceasefire as the death toll from the war rose past 760.(AFP/David Buimovitch)AFP - Israel carried out new deadly air raids on the Gaza Strip on Friday as the UN Security Council called for an immediate ceasefire to end the two-week-old conflict in the Palestinian enclave.



A man carries firewood in the suburbs of Sofia, Bulgaria. European states deprived of Russian gas amid freezing weather were Friday hoping for a resumption of deliveries after the European Union claimed a breakthrough in the crisis between Moscow and Kiev.(AFP/Dimitar Dilkoff)AFP - European states deprived of Russian gas amid freezing weather were Friday hoping for a resumption of deliveries after the European Union claimed a breakthrough in the crisis between Moscow and Kiev.




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