Managing to go the long haul in small business may be one of the most difficult things to accomplish.  The number of small business start-ups that don’t make it past the first five years is astounding.

In the last few weeks, I have noted the retail and manufacturing locations of a small start-up for lease indicating they didn’t make it.  That’s unfortunate.

This particular start-up was like many others.  A guy had an idea.  He saw a niche that he didn’t think was being filled and he thought he could make it work.

Unfortunately, if the niche isn’t being filled, there’s a good chance that there is a reason for the void.  That’s not always the case, but it is an important one to consider.

I talked with this business entrepreneur many times.  He wanted to partner with us in a few areas, but we never found a way to make it work.  He had some creative approaches that could have worked.  One thing he attempted to do was to give customers a discount for allowing him to add his logo to everything he produced for them.  His idea was that getting exposure was important.  I don’t know all the details, but the exposure-for-discount tradeoff is one thing that couldn’t be sustained.

While getting exposure is critically important, controlling cost of goods may be even more critical.  And that is something small business owners frequently overlook.

If cost of goods is too high, there never will be cash flow to cover operating costs.

Making the long haul requires a consistent approach to marketing and exposure that must make sense for your particular business.  Screaming advertising can’t be maintained over the long haul.  And, discounts that undermine cost of goods ratios eventually erode the business model.

Going the distance requires consistent customer service and quality product.  It may not always provide the lowest price but will provide the best value.  Making small business sustainable is a lot more complicated than it appears.

Corporations have no moral compass and therefore have no concern for anything other than stockholder profits.

That indictment of corporate America is personified in the fate of BP chief Tony Hayward.  Hayward spent 20 years as a corporate ninja fighter before becoming head of BP three years ago.  Although he promised to focus on safety and to change the company’s champagne culture, he managed the latter and failed at the former.

Stockholders were pleased that he was making the company fiscally stronger but didn’t notice, didn’t know, or didn’t care that the safety issue was a pending oil well explosion.

Now, after more than three months of being bothered with the distraction of a Gulf oil disaster, Hayward has been replaced as head of the corporate giant.  If a moral compass existed, Hayward would be limping away from BP in shame and poverty as he was fired and stripped of any company benefits.  Not so.  Hayward is being sent to Russia to a plum BP post with a pay raise. Hayward got rewarded for being inconvenienced with the Gulf oil spill!

I have friends who are BP stockholders.  They are morally focused and environmentally conscious.  Over the years, they have enjoyed the financial success of their stock but have been hard pressed to come up with defenses for the company’s environmental practices.  With a corporation as large as BP, few stockholders have the knowledge, ability, or clout to have an impact even if they tried.

That’s not the America we started out to be.  That is the America we have become.  And, after more than a century of corporate control, it will be impossible to reclaim the moral compass.   There will be other disasters.  I’d place bets on Russia for the next fuel-related disaster.

This week, ABC News picked up on blog comments by Southern Baptist Seminary’s Russell Moore about the moral implications of the Gulf oil crisis.

ABC quoted Moore as saying, “We simply can’t be at the place where some evangelicals were prior to this of simply dismissing the whole idea of environmental protection as … Al Gore’s cause and the cause of hippies on their food co-op.”

A few years ago, I observed a new movement among conservative evangelicals to embrace environmental issues.

Perhaps Moore’s comments signal a breakthrough in conservative consciousness as he has a broad following among evangelical conservatives.

For 30 years now, religious conservatives have rallied with political conservatives which has encamped them with economic conservatives.  In the black-and-white world of politics, this has pitted them against environmental conservationists who for some reason tend to be painted as liberals.

Environmental issues are not exclusively liberal concerns.  Moore gives it a great perspective: “We’ve had an inadequate view of human sin.  Because we believe in free markets, we’ve acted as though this means we should trust corporations to protect the natural resources and habitats.”

Moore observes that the Gulf oil leak will perhaps awaken evangelicals to environmental concerns.  He points to the need to extend healthy skepticism to corporations.

Corporations are not our friends.  They are not looking out for our interests.  They are not looking out for the good of future generations.  They are not concerned about the environment.

But why should conservative evangelicals care?    Taking the Bible literally and wholly requires attention to the Old Testament.   It is there that God commanded us to be stewards of the earth he gave us.  Moore said that caring for God means caring for God’s creation.

God gave us a pretty good earth with lots of neat stuff to enjoy – not to mention the essentials elements for survival the earth provides.  We’re obligated to take care of it.  Moore says we need to hold the government, corporations and individuals accountable as part of our responsibility in caring for the earth.  Well said.

Change is constant but it is something we constantly resist.

That principle was apparent this week as the Southern Baptist Convention went through a painful process of changing a hundred-year-old appropriations system that perhaps wasn’t working as well as it once did.

We fight to protect the process and resist solutions to reach the objective.  It takes courage to challenge the process.

I encountered a similar mentality in a meeting at the local church level this week.  We want to defend and perpetuate processes, programs and systems that have been in place for 50 years or more.

The thinking is that if we work harder and are more diligent at doing something that isn’t working then it will work.  We assume that the failure is not the system, but us.

It is imperative that we evaluate the program itself.  Let’s get specific.  If Sunday school, which has been a Southern Baptist hallmark since its heyday in the 1950s, is losing its appeal to a new generation should we change the program or try futilely to guilt the new generation into participating?

It is not that this generation eschews Bible study.  They desire a different method.

And, deacon visitation may have been effective in the last 50 years.  But — NEWS FLASH — this generation doesn’t want you knocking on their door.  No matter how much harder we try to get more people involved in the process, if the process doesn’t work, more people involved won’t make it work any better.

This generation is drawn to a worship experience because of relationships with people who are excited about their worship experience and talk about it.  Guilt is no longer a primary motivator.

So, here are the take-away points to ponder: Is your worship something people get excited about?  Are you so excited about your worship experience that others know about it?  Do you have a Bible study program that draws people because they want more of it or tries to guilt them into meeting attendance goals?

Keeping the objective in focus is more important than keeping the process intact.

It’s just a question of where you want to put your money.  Clarksville City Council members last week balked at a $2.3 million Edith Pettus Park renovation plan.

It’s a good idea, but an expensive idea, one council member observed before retreating to his upper-class neighborhood not far from both private and city-operated golf courses.

Isn’t Pettus Park within sight of the new multi-million dollar Foy Fitness Center?  How about the Governor’s Stadium complete with running track?  Isn’t there a swimming pool and tennis courts adjacent to the Foy Center?  What about the baseball fields, soccer fields, intramural fields, and just plain open fields, all within sight of Pettus Park?  Can’t the kids around Pettus Park just have at it with those facilities?

Oh, rats.  All those things are reserved for college students.  Just across the street, the kids in the hood have only Pettus Park to keep them occupied.  And, spending $2.3 million for a bunch of kids in the hood is, well, just not going to happen, the council member observed.

Within a few blocks of the hood are at least four big box churches with recreation facilities.  Surely kids in the hood are welcome there.  No, the doors there are locked tight.  You can’t just let anybody loose in those places, you know.

Some of those churches have made tentative efforts to reach out over in the hood.  But, there are problems with that.  It’s really not safe, you know.  You can’t take too many risks — back to Fort God secure behind the $75,000 electronically locking door system

The city?  The churches?  Individuals?  Who’s going to take the risk to invest in the kids in the hood?  There’s not much chance of it happening.  There’s just not much return on investment with a bunch of kids in the hood.  Now, about upgrades for that city golf course….

Excusing British Petroleum for a gulf oil spill by saying “sometimes accidents happen” is like a kid blaming gravity for the broken jar of pickles he dropped to the floor.

Kentucky Republicans last week nominated a US Senate candidate who wants to dismiss BP’s responsibility in the Gulf oil disaster as an accident.  He was critical of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s comment that the government’s job was to keep “the boot on the neck of British Petroleum.”

I also take issue with the placement of the boot of government against BP.  I strongly believe the boot should be repeatedly, swiftly and forcefully applied to another part of the anatomy – specifically with the intent of inflicting harm.

BP is a large corporation with significant power and wealth in the United States.  With that power and wealth comes responsibility.  BP took a risk (with government approval, unfortunately) by poking holes in the ocean floor to suck oil out.  They hoped against all reasonable odds that nothing would go wrong.  It did.  It is their fault.

BP has the responsibility to stop the gush of oil that still continues unabated a month later.  They have a responsibility to clean up the damage that is covering the entire Gulf region.

Unfortunately, they will never be able to repair the damage to the ecosystem of the Gulf even if they actually do man up and accept responsibility.

American greed, corporate irresponsibility and political stupidity are going to kill us yet.

(I now have officially broken my promise to stay out of politics with blog posts.  As we go into this political season, I can’t restrain myself. The stupidity is just too rampant.)

Emmylou Harris and I are singing the same song.  Those who know me, or have ever heard me sing, cringe at that image.

But, Emmylou Harris, Dave Matthews, Kathy Mattea, Big Kenny and a host of other country music headliners have organized a campaign to raise awareness about Mountain Removal coal mining – a topic I have commented on in previous blogs.

I realize that Mountain Removal coal mining may not be as significant as Darfur or other international crises.  Even so, entire communities in the Appalachians are being destroyed with this practice.

In short, this is what is happening: Coal companies actually remove mountaintops to get at coal veins.  The mountaintops are then dumped into the valleys creating a moonscape, destroying streams and wildlife habitat, and displacing communities that have existed for multiple generations.

More than 500 Appalachian peaks have been destroyed.  I don’t know how many peaks there are in the Appalachians but I do know God hasn’t make any new ones in the last few thousand years and there is really no expectation that he will replace these that have been destroyed by idiot coal companies.

Removing mountaintops to extract coal makes about as much sense as drilling for oil in the Alaskan wilderness.  Just check with the Gulf Coast to see how well that has gone for them lately.

It seems there are two ways to move a mountain.  On is the biblical method using the faith of a mustard seed.  I’m not aware of a documented case of that being put into practice.  The other is a coal company and a truckload of dynamite.  We can see that in northeast Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, West Virginia and eastern Kentucky.   It is not pretty or poetic.

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander has weighed in opposing this devastating practice.  Tennessee’s lieutenant governor who is running for governor thinks Mountaintop Removal is an acceptable practice.

To learn more about what participating musicians are doing with this project, check out www.MusicSavesMountains.org.

Printed materials may be the last thing a business will worry about when digging out from flood damage.  But, it will be impossible to salvage any printed materials that were caught in the floodwaters.

As businesses dig out from the flood, MediaWorks would like to help by sticking with our core competency – design and printed materials.

This may not be the highest dollar area of loss for a business, but it is something that will be needed to get up and running.

To assist flood-damaged businesses, MediaWorks is offering to provide a basic initial order of materials free of charge.  For design needs, MediaWorks will provide design assistance but not production costs for signs and other materials.

Printing materials may include letterhead, envelops, forms and other materials that are used in the business’s regular operations.

For design, MediaWorks will assist the business in re-developing signage that will meet city codes guidelines.  This is an opportunity to upgrade signage.

MediaWorks may not be able to meet every need for printing services.  But, we will look at each request to assess what we can do.

MediaWorks will determine the quantity of a basic initial order.  We will retain artwork for future reprints.

To request assistance, submit a request in writing using the contact form at www.mediaworksdesign.com.

My sister cautions me that impatience is in our family DNA.  Paul — the New Testament apostle dude, for those of you who aren’t tracking – says that patience is a fruit of the spirit.  Man, that’s to difficult tension.

There have been lots of situations lately that have totally tested my patience and torpedoed my commitment to be kinder and gentler.

Patience may be a fruit of the spirit, but I think I’ve got blight in my orchard.  It is pretty difficult to keep enough spiritual fungicide sprayed on the tree to keep the blight of impatience from spoiling the fruit.

A close brother who has embarked on a major project with me knows from experience that patience is not my strong suit. He observed it first hand while working on another major project a few years ago. I’ve noticed he is recommending suppliers based on what he knows of my temperament.  “I could see the two of you clashing and it wouldn’t be pretty,” he said recently when considering one suppler.  The problem is that he is right.  I had previous experience with the supplier and knew that I would totally lose it with him before the project was completed.

There is a fine line between expecting professional accountability and extending grace.  It is pretty easy to fall back into the impatience mode.

My dream is to sit on the back deck communing with the deer and other gentle creatures.  That goes along with my threat to move to Montana and herd sheep.  But, God didn’t put us here to glorify him among the deer and sheep.  He put us here to glorify him among the people he places around us.  Man, that takes a heck of a lot of spiritual fungicide battling the blight of impatience.

I need the industrial strength size fungicide spray.  How about you?

I know the concept of effectively communicating with customers is critical, but I never appreciate how critical until I’m on the receiving end of bad customer communication.

I’m not good at dealing with bad customer service.  I tend to come across as harsh and straightforward even in non-confrontational situations.  It’s not pretty when it does get confrontational.   My son once told someone that when my ears turn red, bad things are about to happen.  He should know.

As a customer, I realize that been given adequate information makes me much happier.  Not giving updates or giving incomplete or misleading information is bad practice.  My experience is that open and honest information throughout the process can help solve a problem before it becomes a crisis.

In my old Army public affairs days, we had an operations phrase – go ugly early.  The concept was that when dealing with bad or negative information, getting it out in the open early was much better than attempting to bury it.  Experience proved that it would stink worse when it was eventually dug up.

After a dreadful experience of being given bad and misleading information that caused me to fail in a critical delivery to a customer, I have to evaluate my own organization’s communication efforts.

We try to communicate well with customers.  I constantly encourage employees to communicate with customers.  We have mechanisms in place to communicate with customers about jobs in process.  But, I know we don’t do enough.  I know there is more we could do.  In our constant deadline and high-pressure business, we are always pushing to get things done.  We sometimes miss deadlines for lots of reasons.  In our haste to get things done, we sometimes fail to communicate with the customer.  That’s not good.  We’ll do better.