Your Cheese is Going to be Moved. What are you Going to do?

I recently came across this article from the USA Today about the decline in the cable and satallite subscriptions across the country. Here is the crux of what the article says:

The country’s eight largest publicly traded pay-TV companies, representing about 85% of the subscriber total, had reported their results for the third quarter by Friday. These cable, phone and satellite companies showed a combined gain of 66,700 video subscribers, or a 0.3% increase at an annualized rate, about a third the growth of the population.

Okay, that doesn’t sound so bad, until you read the next line:

The figure was a slight recovery from the seasonally weak second quarter, when they gained just 12,400 subscribers. But it’s far short of the 401,300 subscribers gained a year ago.

That’s scary if you rely on a cable or satelite company for your livelihood. But really that’s not the point, the point is the larger picture. Listen to what Ivan Seidenberg, the CEO of Verizon, has to say about people moving from the old school to new technology (landlines to wireless), and old school companies dealing with it –

“The first thing when that happens is you deny it. I know the drill. I have been there.”

I had the opportunity to attend a simulcast of Dave Ramsey’s Entreleadership training on Friday. One of his points was that for many small businesses this recession has moved their cheese (in reference to the book by Spencer Johnson and Kenneth Blanchard, Who Moved My Cheese?). The toughest part to your cheese or livelihood or way of doing things being moved is moving along with it. It requires change.

I’m sure that I’ve posted this thought here before, but change sucks. Especially when change is forced on you, rather than you being the agent of change. The example above refers to change being forced on you. When you refuse to admit that change is taking place and worse yet, refuse to do something you end up like the current state of the old school music industry (on life support).

Here’s the beauty though, both in our personal and business lives change leads to new life and growth. It doesn’t matter how change happens (to you or by you), change allows you to grow into areas you may never have even dreamed of.

spa Member Thomas Urban started a great thread on spa Talk about making changes to his sales strategy, in his own terms – a year in review (in regards to his senior season). He listed about 5 things that he needs/wants to change to improve his business. What he did is so rare. He took stock of his year, assessed the good and bad, and made a list of things that need to be changed and improved. An even more rare thing will be for Thomas to actually follow through on that list. No matter how well he does, he did make the list and admitted the need for change.

What about you. What do you need to change? Feel free to post here or visit the spa Talk thread above to share there.