When the tide goes out, you discover who’s been swimming naked.  – Peter Drucker

Drucker should need no introduction.  He gave us the term “knowledge worker” and is widely accepted as the father of the science of management. 

His catchy saying exposes a lot of truth currently or soon to be visible in our industry. 

The tide of money that has hidden activities many dealers would like to have kept hidden has gone slack.  At the low ebb, weaknesses in business practices are apparent.  Dealers and assemblers alike have lost the cover of having readily available cash.  Those who have been too heavily leveraged no longer have the depth to cover things they would rather have kept private.   Those exposed tend to blame the banks, the economy, their partners up and down the supply chain, and anyone else but themselves.  Truth is, if they’d paid attention to the turn of the tide they’d have either pulled on some trunks or gotten out of the water. 

Don’t think we’ve had our last cheap thrill either.  Some dealers out there are sure to fail during the “off season."  Don’t kid yourself and don’t let them kid you.  It wasn’t due to a single event.  Such things almost never are.  It takes a sequence of poor decisions to get to the point that your business is exposed.  Trouble is, it’s like the Emperor’s New Clothes.  It can be difficult to see how deeply you’ve gotten in trouble.  It can be hard to see the errors of your way. 

That’s where the level of the tide comes into play… or in this case goes out.  It serves as a marker to show just how exposed you really are. 

Here’s the life preserver – do what you know is right for your business and all its stakeholders. Don’t fall prey to quick fixes and shortcuts.  You reap what you sow.  You reap after you sow. You reap more than you sow.