{"id":1239,"date":"2013-08-21T11:15:46","date_gmt":"2013-08-21T15:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=1239"},"modified":"2020-03-09T10:33:42","modified_gmt":"2020-03-09T14:33:42","slug":"re-inventing-firms-in-a-down-sloping-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.himesassociates.com\/re-inventing-firms-in-a-down-sloping-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Re-inventing Firms in a Down-Sloping Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Paul E. Himes<\/p>\n

Yesterday, my good friend and prominent businessman, Jim Cahill and I had an hour long conversation\u00a0 about \u201cre-inventing\u201d our firms in this sideways and down-sloping commercial real estate\u00a0 market. The turbulence and unpredictability of course, comes courtesy of dynamic (some say destructive) capitalism. It is the ability to think DIFFERENTLY and to view things differently that enables us to formulate game winning strategies, the insight to \u201czig\u201d when others \u201czag\u201d, and like a good battlefield general, to know when to charge and when to pull back.<\/p>\n

Primarily it is the \u201cHow do I differentiate myself?\u201d question that we, as business people, need answered. For you see, our clientele, our customers, are NOT going to take the time to view us differently, or to use any sort of divinator when viewing us. It is us who must present, front and center, that difference. Place the lens in front of their eye, as it were, and FORCE them to view you as you would want them to view you.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow to Think Like Leonardo DaVinci<\/a>\u201d was a great read. It taught me a lot, including to start using my left brain more. My left hand is my off hand since I am right handed.\u00a0 To this day, years later, I have to continually work at this. Surfing and researching today I ran across this\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Inc. Magazine<\/a>\u00a0that struck me a a great distillation of the book in some easy points.<\/p>\n

The Italian master had skill and great ideas, but he also had something else: the ability to look at the world around him differently. And Michael Gelb, being a pretty brilliant guy himself, uses DaVinci himself as an easel to paint to you how to think like Leo.<\/p>\n

Applying this to my conversation yesterday spawned these thoughts:<\/p>\n

Do you look, walk, act and sound too much like your closest competitors? Do SOMETHING about it. Change your viewpoint and start looking at the issue \/ your firm \/ your job \/ your life DIFFERENTLY. So what would Leonardo do? (A new bumper sticker in the making here \u2013 WWLD?) Do these: (or other creative ideas)<\/p>\n