🚨   3 Choices
🤬   Fight
🤑   Flight
🥶   Freeze
🚨 3 Choices
Kodak is often blamed for failing to pivot to digital photography. How could the world’s largest and most successful photography company — the company that literally invented the digital camera — possibly lose to Instagram?
The answer: the business was no longer relevant.
From 1888 to the early 2000s, Kodak was unstoppable. It created vast wealth and innovations. The company generated over 79,000 patents!
But Kodak was not a software company. It was a wildly successful chemical company. It didn’t have the business model, infrastructure, or overhead of a small, nimble tech company.
Kodak was a successful company until it wasn’t.
Change is inevitable, especially during periods of disruption.
We’re facing one of these periods right now. The global trade war is rewiring supply chains, reshoring industries, and creating an uncertainty tsunami.
There are some industries that are thriving — AI is booming, for instance — but most are not. And some industries are in peril.
Like an animal under threat, we have three natural responses:
- Fight: Innovate, adapt, and change to win in a new reality.
- Flight: Exit, sell, or walk away if the cost of fighting is too high.
- Freeze: Wait or ride it out, but this is not an option.
🤬 Fight
A crisis can come in many forms:
- Technological change, like AI.
- Regulatory change, like tariffs.
- Industry change, like a new competitor.
Some change happens slowly, while other changes hit you hard and fast. Either way, you face a reality: your business is at risk. You can feel it in your cash flow, profitability, and sales.
The real challenge is what to do about it, because what made you successful won’t necessarily make you successful. You can’t keep doing what you’ve been doing anymore. It’s simply not working.
These moments are powerful, because you can feel your industry rewiring itself and creating opportunities for a new generation of leaders.
You can be that leader. Kings are made in downturns. But it requires speed, discipline, and rapid iterations. You’ve gotta fight and innovate!
The companies that act fast and adapt faster gain the advantage.
🤑 Flight
Selling or closing your business is not failure. It can be the most practical and responsible decision a business owner can make.
Before the pandemic, I never imagined advising business owners to “take their chips off the table” and sell or close. But I have learned it’s a very real choice.
If the prospects of recovery are long and bleak, exiting may be the best option. No one should be a martyr with their business.
Being a business owner carries a lot of emotion and responsibility. There’s a very real attachment, and you don’t want to let anyone down. People’s lives, mortgages, and futures rely on the business, after all.
That emotion is powerful and valuable, but you cannot lose sight of the fact that the business is a wealth creating asset. If it is not financially viable or you don’t have the ability to steward its growth further, the better option is to sell it, pass it on, or close it.
🥶 Freeze
Turtling or riding it out is not option. That will make things worse.
Freezing is the most common response, and you can see it happening with the trade war. Companies are slamming on the brakes and delaying or canceling major purchases.
According to data from the Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing survey, manufacturers planning to increase capital investment fell by 55% between October 2024 and March 2025.
I see this in my customers’ customers, too. The head of North American manufacturing for a global automotive brand said, “It’s business as usual… but wait and see.”
It was unsettling to hear, but he was right. It is business as usual. They are producing cars and moving forward with current production. But they aren’t starting anything new.
Uncertainty is a tax that has caused companies to freeze.
The instinct may be to freeze, but fight it. Choose the other two natural responses:
- Innovate: Fight for your business and its future. The actions you take right now will define what your business will look like in three to five years.
- Exit: If you’ve taken your business as far as you can, an exit is an accomplishment. Embrace it.
📺 Free Webinar
You’re invited! Join me for a free webinar at 11:00 EST on June 11. Register to attend How to Win When the Rules Keep Changing.
🤔  Thoughts on Today’s Issue?
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