A Human on this Earth, Business and Money

A long time ago, in one of my classes at the Trebas Institute in Toronto, I taught students the four stages associated with the Business Life Cycle, which are: Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Death. As surely civilizations come and go, from those now long-forgotten that preceded the Stone Age, despite the hard work and sacrifice of many people to keep them alive, so do products, brands, companies and industries. Over the past century there are many unique businesses now extinct, as each relied on the careful balance of selling new versus old product.

Success or failure relies on human decisions, based on opinion, deciding simply yes or no. Each decision has an impact. Businesses do not make decisions, people do. Businesses do not have a conscience, people do. People can easily impact businesses by the purchase decisions they make. In this sense, people can equally impact a business by choosing to be employed by it or not. Time is what matters, and people have little of it to spend.

By typically generating revenue quarter upon quarter, and thus delivering results, established product lines are trusted by ruling leaders of corporations, providing ownership the requisite confidence in their decision making ability and enabling them to keep their jobs year after year. It is a fact, however, the introduction of new product costs money, to not only introduce new product to the board and to its executives, and to the company on the whole, as well as to distributors and the vaunted media, but most importantly to the consumers expected to buy the product.

It is not an easy decision to introduce new product, and much can go wrong. Early discussions among chief decision makers include the numerous variables associated with an assigned finite budget, and whether - if successfully introduced - the business will actually be able to achieve sales projections and service the product by attracting, hiring, training and retaining a suitable workforce from the top down, while also writing an appropriate set of guiding principles for the company to assure growth and their ability to compete on several levels, locally and globally.

Prior to the introduction of new product, any business must be able to first define a quantifiable base of consumers that needs the product and therefore will buy the product, before determining a strategy to effectively and efficiently reach them wherever they live. Hence, it is incumbent for the marketers, or a third-party professional agency, after much deliberation to eventually offer not only a value proposition for the intended consumer but a comprehensive plan to succeed after evaluating all advertising, public relations, direct selling and promotional options.

Everything is a people business.

To compete and grow, the business must know its consumer can afford the new product. One step beyond, the business must know the consumer is willing to spend their money on a new product. At this stage, it must convince the consumer of their need and the (critical) value the new product will provide once purchased, given the competition and their new product on store shelves, not to mention other priorities facing the consumer. Adult humans have time to spend, and in return are paid for their time - if found productive and hence generate profit for the employer.

Although much can go wrong, people are the biggest risk for any business. But, by working, they do have disposable income, The majority of consumers, when it comes to the purchase decision process, will not take a risk on an unproven and unworthy product; if the product is deemed too expensive when compared to similar product, its days on the shelf are numbered. If a product is deemed bad or proven useless due to the introduction of one cheaper and featuring better technology - offering consumers an improved life and lifestyle - the inferior product will die.

At the end of the day, businesses must invest a lot of money in the introduction of new product to grow and survive and ensure they can remain competitive by being profitable, but if the product is competitive and generates a profit, they are assured a competitor will want a piece of the pie and introduce his own new product into the market cheaper and faster. People make these decisions.

Life is short for a human on this planet, in relative terms, especially if talking to a geologist. Upon surviving costly childhood and risky teen years, regardless of his employment, a productive adult could impact a community that might certainly enable his memory to live on in the community, until eventually swept under the proverbial carpet by more relevant people and their deeds. Sadly, but likely, these memories will be enveloped by a nation of people, and one day all lives and legacies will be forgotten, especially if the nation is swept away by the forces of nature.

There is always a realm of possibilities available to adults with respect to being productive and the responsibility of joining the workforce and accepting a wage in exchange for time spent on the job or doing something else, even nothing or as little as possible in order to live another day. Yet there are people in the corporate world who need to sell other people a job; companies need people after all. Companies also need to compete and to survive they need to remain profitable. Therefore, companies must continually increase revenue and decrease costs to compete and survive.

Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, a company cannot hire enough people and to compete must offer a higher wage to attract employees. Facing competitors employing cheaper labour, they become unprofitable and die. Sometimes, a company chooses not to invest it profits in new technology, and cannot compete against the competitor who does, and dies. Sometimes, a company will die if it cannot - given all the choices a company must make - afford to buy advertisements on television, not only in one city but across an entire nation and in fact globally, while the competitor can and does.

As a human eventually dies, while united under one banner for a moment in time, civilizations do not escape death either, and many - if not all - simply disappear from our history books, regardless of their impact, their innovations or collective deeds on behalf of humanity. Life for a soldier at war, while doing his duty, might be short, while life for his company might be a bit longer, as well as his battalion, though life for his army will end, if the war is lost. People, whether employers or employees, feel the need to make an impact; thus some purchase decisions are based on whether to support a local business or a major corporation.

In the music business today, artists compose songs, and these songs when collated comprise albums, and several albums recorded similarly comprise catalogues. In general, the lifespan of a song is short - as it climbs "the charts" and then falls within weeks - and, if followed by a series of equally popular songs, the album too will enjoy a lifespan of its own, maybe months, and given the success on radio and television and possibly online, the band may live on longer to write and record more albums over years, but if they break up and go their separate ways, the catalogue they leave behind will live on for decades, possibly forever. Maybe.

In general, the new artist does not care about album sales or touring revenue, though he or she does care about recognition, about being heard. They care about the impact they make through the statements found within each of their songs and collectively on their albums and ultimately their catalogue. This is the legacy of the artist across all civilizations: the impact they make on others, and the decisions these consumers make based on the opinions formulated upon hearing their music (or seeing their art) and responding to the message behind the music.

Artists are not afraid to introduce new product. Unfortunately, in most cases, it is the lack of capital that stops them from reaching their audiences across the world. Records labels, and they too have a lifespan, have only a limited amount of time and resources to devote to new product introductions, while balancing budgets based on catalogue sales. New songs, similar to the film industry, are released daily. Humans, however, only have enough time to listen to so much music, and watch so many films.

(This is also true of the investment industry, as there are new companies with new product appearing each day armed with business plans to do well, but only so many firms with so much money to invest in their introduction, based on their ability to assign humans to evaluate them. So, they rely on old "tried and true" product, a catalogue of investment product, graded and proven to generate results.)

Since the introduction of broadcast technology, and radio stations, and the new product each week that feeds the minds of their listeners around the world, it is important that while we recognize the lifespan of a song is short indeed, as is one's own life, it is thus the impact we make that matters the most, This is what we must do with our time over our life. Each business - owners and managers - as well must also reflect on the impact they make, and the impact of their profit, on people and our environment. It matters. Their decisions matter, despite how long or short we or they are here.

New media online still has the opportunity to make dinosaurs out of old broadcasters.

Choral debut of Toronto Valour Ensemble released

As many of you know it was the vocals that differentiated our many Raw Energy bands, and although many of you may wonder how I got involved in a choral album (it is a long story), be assured the vocals on Sacrifice and Solace will astound you, not to mention the overall message behind this project. Lest we forget. Free previews of each song are available via CD Baby and feel free to leave your comments.

Choral debut of Toronto Valour Ensemble released

Sacrifice and Solace