Prediction: As this decade unfolds, it will get harder and harder for small business owners to hold on to their customers-if they stick to unprogressive marketing practices and methods. Why? Well, for one thing the internet has made it possible for us to choose only the best, the easiest, and most convenient products and services. Why should I deal with anyone who is not extraordinary when I don't have to?

Here are the four biggest threats small business owners will face in the years to come.

Small Business Threat # 1: Financial Forecasts, World Events. Listening to financial forecasts and other voices of doom is a serious threat to your equilibrium and momentum. With bad news it's too easy to make excuses. And, when boom times come, it's far too easy to let up and lose focus.

The recent recession, if it ever happened, did not affect everyone equally. (The definition of a recession is two quarters of 'negative growth'. You never know until much later if it really was a recession.) Some people took it very seriously. Others did not.

One magazine publisher I know told me recently that advertisers stopped buying after September 11. A few days after speaking to him, I looked at his direct competitor's magazine. It was jam packed with full-page four-colour ads!

Since a recession is, in large measure, a group hallucination, you can choose not to participate in it, or, you can minimize its effect by focusing on what you can control. Even in the best of times-the boom times-many companies go out of business. Whole industries come under siege. So, I don't suggest you delude yourself about anything. Just remember; you have a choice about how you look at things.

Small Business Threat# 2: A reactive mindset. If you take a 'wait and see' attitude, you'll find yourself in trouble so fast it will make your head spin. One of the first things I look at when assessing a company is their "reactive/proactive pulse". No amount of excellent marketing information or strategy can turn around a company if the key players do not have their heads screwed on straight.

It may sound corny, but a "can do" attitude is incredibly important.

Small Business Threat # 3: Competitors with superior positioning. This is perhaps the most serious threat of all. If someone in your market has preemptively positioned their company, you are forced into a defensive position. If you think that's okay, just imagine that you are Heinz Ketchup's biggest (yet relatively unknown) competitor and repeat the following statement five times: "It's also not Hunts!"

Great positioning is a proxy for me having to think about what the best choice is. I don't want to have to think about that. Time is the most precious commodity on the planet right now and if I can find a shortcut to keep me from having to think, I'm going to take it.

If your competitor has superior positioning, they will appear to your potential customers as the only logical choice in your category. And salesmanship will not be able to save you.

Small Business Threat # 4: Lack of systems. The only way to take a small company and
turn it into a big company is to create systems for everything you do. If you have ever considered a franchise (and the franchisee survival rate is a multiple of the small business survival rate), you probably noticed that they were selling you a SYSTEM-a consistent way of doing things.

If you do things differently each time; or, if you have to think about a task every time you approach it, you cannot grow. Instead of constantly reinventing the wheel, you need to develop systematic ways to deliver each part of your product or service. To not do so is to leave yourself open to all manner of problems.

Conclusion: The biggest threat of all is complacence. If you are happy to do things as you've always done, your customers will find someone else who is not so complacent.

Tom St. Louis is a marketing strategist, repositioning expert, and president of Zerald Communications of Toronto. To receive a free subscription to his E-Zine "Marketing From the Heart", and the E-Book "The Three Most Powerful Marketing Strategies in History", visit:
www.zerald.com