Markets Trending Positive Today. You?

Markets have gone through a corrective downturn and may be finished with the negative trend for now, so it’s back to the positive side.  What do you own that is worth owning in a up-trend?

During a downturn we would ask a different question, “What do you own that you shouldn’t during a down-trend?”  Anything already languishing is a good answer.  The point here is to always have an eye on what’s worth owning, or as a business owner, what’s worth doing.  Your business has both tangible and intangible elements within it.  Both are required or you couldn’t be in business.  Plans, hopes, goals, dreams are all intangible along with goodwill and good intentions.

Today, align your management style with utilizing the things you know work well and focus on moving forward with the few things you are really good at managing.  That doesn’t mean you should take any opportunities off the table, just focus on the best ones for now, since the markets, and thus business in general, are on shaky ground.

Case in point: Yahoo tried hard to follow the trend of Google in expanding into the universe of web services.  Google is good at identifying potential opportunity, designing a platform, and throwing it on the web for everyone to try.  If it works out and the demand is there, they maintain it, otherwise they just let it languish for a while and then quietly pull it off the menu.  Yahoo just does not work well in that mode.  They are better at focusing in a few areas, developing good core, demand-based solutions, and offering it to the world in a solid usable form.  Yahoo has leaned out their process and gone back to their core offerings which give them the best position in the markets they know.  If you pull up their menu of offered services you will see that a few things are gone.  One thing they are bringing back is an effort in broadcasting which they began in the late 1990’s and actually did well with until the markets sank after the new century began.  It will be interesting to see if the new formula works.  My guess is they have a stronger plan this time around and we just need to see if works out.

Never give up, keep refocusing your effort on what you are best at.