The Mouse Trap

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. “What food might this contain?” the mouse wondered. He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning: “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The pig sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”

The mouse turned to the cow and said, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house – like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital and she returned home with a fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient. But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember, when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another. Each one of us is a vital thread in another person’s tapestry.

Grey Hair

A curious child asked his mother: “Mommy, why are some of your hairs turning grey?”

The mother tried to use this occasion to teach her child: “It is because of you, dear. Every bad action of yours will turn one of my hairs grey!”

The child replied innocently: “Now I know why grandmother has only grey hairs on her head.”

Wrong Email Address

A couple planed to go on vacation but the wife was on a business trip so husband went to the destination first and his wife would meet him the next day.

When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick email.

Unfortunately, when typing her email address, he mistyped a letter and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher’s wife whose husband had passed away only the day before.

When the grieving widow checked her email, she took one look at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor in a dead faint.

At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen:

Dearest Wife,

Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow.

P.S. Sure is hot down here.

You Will Never Lose Your Value

A popular speaker started off a seminar by holding up a $20 bill. A crowd of 200 had gathered to hear him speak. He asked, “Who would like this $20 bill?”

200 hands went up.

He said, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.” He crumpled the bill up.

He then asked, “Who still wants it?”

All 200 hands were still raised.

“Well,” he replied, “What if I do this?” Then he dropped the bill on the ground and stomped on it with his shoes.

He picked it up, and showed it to the crowd. The bill was all crumpled and dirty.

“Now who still wants it?”

All the hands still went up.

“My friends, I have just showed you a very important lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20.

Many times in our lives, life crumples us and grinds us into the dirt. We make bad decisions or deal with poor circumstances. We feel worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. You are special – Don’t ever forget it!

Today, experts Agree that more businesses face an unstable business environment. Improvements in information processing and
telecommunications have made major changes in most businesses. In addition to this, improvements in transportation and the
development of foreign economies (specifically in Europe and Asia) have created a global market and surpassed certain businesses.
Additionally, as consumers are exposed to more choices, loyalty is becoming less important than it once was; a slightly better
price or a temporary lack of inventory can easily result in the loss of customers. Competitors can also alter rapidly, with new
ones appearing out of nowhere (often this means another side of the world ). With the instability of the global market, it is
vital that you make strategic planning part of your overall company strategy.

Proactive Versus Reactive Management. A few decades back, you can set and maintain a business by reacting to and meeting changes
in tastes, prices and costs. This reactive type of direction was frequently enough to keep the company going. However, today
changes occur fast and come from a number of directions. By the time a reactive supervisor can make the necessary adjustments,
they might lose many clients -- possibly for good.

Proactive Preparation is the expectation of future events. Decisions are based on forecasts of future conditions of the
environment as opposed to responses to several crises as they occur. Proactive planning within an unstable, technology-driven
business environment is important to ongoing success in almost any endeavor. Rather than responding to the situation as it
changes, proactive preparation requires you to analyze environmental forces and make resource-allocation decisions. By doing this
you will take your business where it ought to be in the next month, year and decade. Barry Worth, a consultant specializing in
small business management, puts it this way: Today's entrepreneur must be a business proprietor. Anything built in today's
business environment must have a step-by-step blueprint or strategy on the best way best to reach success. The blueprint for
today's business owner is a business plan.

The Need To Get a Strategic Plan. Planning plays a significant role in any business enterprise. It may make the difference between
the success or failure of your business. You need to plan carefully before investing your time and effort, especially, your cash
in any business venture. The demand for a plan is best exemplified by the following situation -"A Tale of 2 Firms."

Two franchises (A and B) were started by individuals who had worked in direction in much bigger companies. While Franchise A
supplied a item and Franchise B per service, the outcome of both franchise systems were marketed exclusively in the United States
prior to the current owners became more involved. The output of both was readily available in other developed countries as well.
The franchises opened about the same time and franchisee had a strong market presence, nor do they present. Today Franchise B is
broke. By contrast, Franchise A is selling products in the Midwestern United States and in Europe.

What was the Deciding difference in the two franchises' achievement? You probably expect it to be that one had developed a
tactical plan and the other had not; however, it is not this easy. Several factors can influence the result of a business venture.
There were many similarities between the franchises, but there were also many gaps.

Most notably, Franchise A marketed a solution and Franchise B per service (although this doesn't clearly limit choices ). Another
difference was that Franchise A had a carefully thought-out plan. The investors understood as they looked to get a franchise
partner they wanted to locate a product that could satisfy global markets and a franchiser who'd support that kind of sales
effort. These investors were established in the Midwest, but negotiated for exclusive rights to export the franchiser's product.
Once they had acquired the franchise, as soon as they started to establish their business domestically, they also began to contact
government specialists from the U.S. Department of Commerce as well as teachers and local managers with global experience.

Clear plans Were developed outlining how they would position, market and distribute the product and which overseas markets would
be targeted first. Even as they had been building sales in a single European market, they had been attending trade shows and
preparation entry strategies others.

By contrast, The second investor (Franchise B) started his company strictly because he wished to leave a former employer. Of
course many small businesses get started this waynonetheless, in this case no investigation of franchising options was done. The
business was located in an area which, as it turned out, included virtually no consumers for the kind of support being offered.
When this error was accomplished, it had been too late to move--the investor only didn't have the cash or the desire to risk
starting again.

Other examples Further show the need for strategic planning and for developing a clear business plan. The owner of a business that
seemed to be doing quite well in just two places was going to start in a third. The authors have been called in to develop a
benefits policy and found cash flow problems that may be found just after operations had begun in the new location. After
assessing the situation, a growth and financial plan was developed for the sound locations only. In another case, the authors
determined that a company had purchased more equipment than was needed to do the current workload.

After careful Analysis, plans to make further purchases were put on hold, along with the equipment available was used efficiently
to meet immediate demands.

A business Enterprise is to complex to assume that failure to develop a sound organization Plan is going to be the reason behind
problems But this failure often counts Among the variables contributing to business issues. As Worth has said, "Being a company
entrepreneur now takes constant vigilance to be able to Be able to take advantage of new opportunities and the availability of new
Technology and information as they become." The first step in Doing this is to have a plan.

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