Take off the blinders.

I grew up in Tennessee. Mules wore what was called blinders to focus their vision directly to the path in front of them. This prevented outside distractions.

When business is great, blinders makes sense in order to increase profitability. However, when business drops, you need to remove the blinders. I had recommended to a company I am privileged to work with that they outsource part of a large contract job they had received to another company I had also worked with. The manager made a call to the company I knew had available equipment, and personnel to do the job. He was told by someone in the office, "We don't do any contract work."

I could not believe this response!

Each company needs to make an assessment of their strengths, their equipment, and their people to see what other business could be obtained to fill the voids in the current business lull. And, under no circumstance should potential business be turned down until all the key people in the company decide that there is no way it could be done. A person turning down business today needs to be replaced unless there is no way it could be done in the plant.

If you are the company that turned down good business you could have done, George says, "Shame on you!"