Being a Two-Year-Old Is Not Easy
On December 8, 2009 TotalBeauty.com celebrated its second birthday. In that period of time we have raised two rounds of financing, hired 40 people, fired 19 people, brought in millions of dollars in revenues, saw even more millions leave in expenses, rose to the fourth largest beauty/fashion property on the Web, purchased another company, and had three Total Beauty babies.
In that same period of time we saw the Dow Jones fall 52 percent and then rise 60 percent, the unemployment rate rise from 4.8 percent to 10 percent, 35 major magazines shut down, the country elect our first African-American president, and the toughest economic times since the Great Depression.
What a difference two years makes. 2008 was a great year until the fourth quarter. Then we thought the world was coming to an end. A year later, we realize it didn't. Now we can finally exhale.
Reflecting back on these up-and-down times, I thought I'd share three lessons I learned that I feel should be applied in good times and bad.
Don't Get Emotional
It's important to not panic and get depressed when things are looking down in your business. If you do, it can have a significant impact on not just your psyche but on the psyche of your team, partners, and customers. People are looking at their leaders to provide them with emotional stability and confidence.
It is also important not to get too elated when things are looking up. Doing so will set an emotional bar for your team that you then must live up to whenever there's good news in the future. It could also result in taking your eye off the ball. This does not mean that accomplishments and key achievements should not be celebrated, although admittedly I myself can do a much better job here.
Get Focused
It seems that the bad times are when companies get focused on the areas they have a right to win in -- and therefore then make the biggest impact in. And during good times they sometimes lose focus on the key drivers that truly grow their business.
In good times or bad, we should always be evaluating the key value drivers for our business, and have everyone in our companies focused on those key drivers. This doesn't mean we shouldn't experiment, test and look at growth opportunities.
Act
Once you define your key focus areas, you must execute -- ruthlessly. You can only "practice" for so long. Eventually you have to play the game.
In the most recent recession and in previous ones, we have seen that companies who were able to make the tough decisions and act on them quickly increased their chances of survival and success.
- Emrah Kovacoglu, Founder and CEO, Total Beauty Media, Inc.
