Is Your Business Truly on a Path To Success—Or Just Headed Down a Dead End?
By Jim Blasingame

For centuries, English foxhunters dragged a red herring in front of their hounds in order to distract them from the scent of the furry little guy. In time, this practice produced the metaphorical “red herring,” which is an attempt to win an argument or negotiation by diverting attention from the real issue.

Introducing a red herring in a sales discussion or negotiation can be a handy defensive tactic. But sometimes we use personal red herrings, which essentially means when we lie to ourselves.

It’s one thing to use red herrings with others as a communication strategy. But when we use them on ourselves, it’s unproductive at best and destructive at worst.

Shakespeare addressed this issue five centuries ago in Hamlet, when Polonius said: “This above all: to thine own self be true…”

If you can’t be true to yourself, you can’t be true to your dream. And a false dream is an entrepreneurial atomic meltdown waiting to happen.

Perhaps the most difficult challenge you’ll face is knowing when to continue to believe in whatever you’re working on and when it’s time to move on. One of my mentors helped me learn how to face these “go—no go” decisions by asking this question: “Do you have a fighting chance or just a chance to fight?” The key to success in business, and indeed in life, may be as simple as knowing the answer to that question.

One way to tell if you’re dragging a stinking fish across the trail of your dream is by checking your position. Here are three examples:

1. Have you conducted enough due diligence to find out if your plan has a reasonable chance of being successful? If not, telling yourself things will work out is a red herring.

2. Is your activity resulting in any success? If nothing is working, convincing yourself that you just need to work harder is masking reality.

3. Are your assumptions performing? If you’re only consuming resources without creating opportunity, you must tell yourself this truth: I’m not on the right trail— yet.

If even small successes can be found mixed in with the failures, you may have a vision merely in need of adjustments and worthy of extra effort. In order to evaluate all of this, small-business owners need all the facts they can get their hands on. And they need the truth from all parties— especially from themselves.

The marketplace is formidable enough. Use red herrings for foxhunting and negotiating, not on yourself. Write this on a rock ... “This above all: to thine own self be true.”

Jim Blasingame is the award-winning host of The Small Business Advocate Show and creator of the small-business knowledge base www.AskJim.biz. Also find him at www.SmallBusinessAdvocate.com.