What’s worse Than a Four Letter Word? I say it can be a five letter word named – Audit. Depending on the amount of governmental interest in your particular industry you probably have noticed an increased amount of attention being paid to auditing. This seems to be a new normal in the landscape of business.
Unfortunately, the moral and financial failures of the past have opened the doors to big-time government control over the private sector. Whether you were a fan of the governmental bailouts or not, we are all dealing with the fallout.
Introducing: Auditing, the new normal.
External auditing is extremely expensive for the small business owner. It is this new barrier to entry that will stunt private sector growth and eventually consolidate the marketplaces. No industry will be immune to this new normal. It’s a matter of time, provided our governmental representatives continue to believe they are smarter, more ethical, and entirely responsible for the stability of the private sector.
Business can be hard, but it doesn’t need to be.
As small business operators, we must embrace this new normal as best we can while not shelving our common sense. We must begin the conversation about appropriate leadership responses and how we can all make the best out of an expensive season to be in business.
3 Keys To Surviving the Audit Generation
- Embrace “Kaizen” or constant never-ending improvement. Understand
that small businesses did not cause this intervention, but we can lead the way through it. We must find practical ways to conform and improve from the extra attention being paid to the smallest details. By leveraging our ability to keep up with this new era we will become a newly defined “élite” class of product and service providers. IF we survive – our markets will expand. - Push back with common sense. The problem with excessive auditing is that some believe they are always correct. This auditing generation posses the threat of rigidity that hinders innovation. Innovation is the lifeblood of the American small business infrastructure. If we lose our ability to innovate, we will find ourselves dead in the water. I suggest that we pick our battles strategically, but question action items that do not make good old-fashioned business sense.
- Look across the ocean or at least your industry. What new services can you provide to your industry and peers who are coping with the same deluge of regulations. Now is the time to innovate by opening new, uncontested markets within your sectors. Business is about meeting needs – so meet them.
Every economic season has its pros and cons. In business, often times, our very survival hangs in the balance. We must take full advantage of the pros while lessening the impact of the cons. No matter what your vocation; if the current trend of intervention continues – the true industry leaders will learn to thrive while many others will become part of audit folklore.
No Turtle Soup for you. With additional regulations, comes cost. Turtle soup aint free. With additional regulations comes less Turtle Soup. Soon Turtle Soup will be a thing of the past. Once thriving with turtles as far as the eye can see, small business will soon be operating on the hope of future turtles appearing. It won’t be long and we’ll be writing “I owe you’s” for turtle soup, believing that the future will bring less cost/regulation, and we can pay later for the Turtle Soup we eat today. After that, only the relics that remember the good ole (less regulated) days, will even remember Turtle soup. Nobody will even be able to recall the taste or texture of the Turtle Soup we once loved. The only glimmer of hope we have is to move our businesses to somewhere temperate (say Louisiana) and start our own turtle farms and produce our own turtles to make our own turtle soup. We’ll have to do it very small though to avoid detection by the ADMINISTRATION. Otherwise, we can be sure a regulatory group called something like the Turtle Soup Protection Bureau (TSPB) will be formed by the ADIMINISTRATION to dictate how we raise our turtles smarter, more ethically, and more responsibly. Can’t they just leave us alone and let us eat our Turtle Soup in peace.
Live Action! Apparently this post struck a note with my co-workers! Thanks for commenting Roger I love the turtle soup analogy.
Well said my friend! Pushback= educate. Auditors believe they know what is needed and necessary but it is up to us to pushback and educate them on what our businesses are truly about and what is right while fulfilling their needs. Our businesses cannot be hijacked if we don’t let them!
Well said! Great job.
Nice “Strategic Roadmap” to navigate our way through economic, market and client changes/requirements.