GoHuman Blog

For example, if you just take the number of businesses that start at a given time and then check to see if they are in existence at year five and ten, this is not exactly a scientific approach.  How many of those businesses don’t exist anymore because the small business was gobbled up by another larger business?  Not exactly a failure, if the original owner was happy with the purchase price and retired to the beach.  What about those businesses that no longer exist, but they made a profit?  Maybe the owner closed it down because it did not achieve the amount of profit they were thinking it should generate based on the amount of blood, sweat, and tears it took to build it.  Is that considered a failure?

So there are a multitude of reasons a business can cease to exist and it is virtually impossible to know the reason for each one.  Don’t always blindly believe statistics, especially if they are repeated so often that they become a mantra that no one ever questions.

Now, having said that, a lot of businesses do “fail” — which I define as the inability of the business to generate enough income to pay all expenses, including a reasonable salary to the business owner.  And, unfortunately, a lot of businesses fail because they make the same mistakes that thousands of other business owners have already made and will continue to make in the never-ending future.

If you’d like to avoid those mistakes, please continue checking back into this space on a weekly basis. Our team of bloggers has a wealth of experience to share with you that should help you to stay on a path to success.

I’ve been a WFB Customer for almost two decades with a Premier Master Asset (PMA) account identifying me as a “High Value” customer.  At the beginning of the housing bubble I loved WFB for financing single family rental property investments for my retirement.

But when the poop hit the fan, they treated me worse than a number.  As rates came down I spent years trying to refinance my properties through them.  They could not (or would not) help.  They had me resubmit reams of information they already had, charged me a $500 application fee, then denied the loan, multiple times.

Finally, as interest rates plummeted last year, I spent ten months working with an independent mortgage broker to refinance four properties.  Imagine my shock when two weeks after closing the last one, WFB acquired two of them.

PMA customer or not, WFB would not loan me money, despite a 19 year relationship with them, but had no problem acquiring my loans from a third party.  Individuals are a tiny, insignificant annoyance to the business of big banking.  WFB works for someone, but not for me, and likely not for you.

I stuck with WFB because they were not even close to being the worst of the lot.  But the problem is systemic, and I founded GoHuman to initiate radical change, so GoHuman.com is in the process of switching merchant services from WFB to Summit Credit Union.

My apologies to our community for taking so long to take this step in breaking my personal co-dependence on a “too-big-to-fail” institution.  This move is long overdue, but it’s now easier to say WFB PMA?  KMA!

Over the next few months we’ll get more serious about establishing who and what we are, and how, exactly, we are going to change the way our world works!  We also look forward to hearing your thoughts.

U.S. founding fathers were familiar with a 4,000 year old economic system, which enabled capitalism while limiting capitalists’ ability to exploit the system and oppress its losers.  All families owned land, debts were forgiven every seven years, and land was leased, not sold, for a maximum 49 years.  It reverted to the tribal / family owners in a year of Jubilee.

But Solomon, a king of Israel and “the wisest man who ever lived”  wrote “The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower is servant to the lender.“  Why would the king of Israel, in which every family was supposed to own land and debts were forgiven, state such a thing?

Because the people abdicated ownership, on multiple levels. Within a very short period of time, freed slaves were again enslaved, first by their fears and desires, then by their kings, then by outside forces.  Human nature hasn’t changed much in 4,000 years.

American-style capitalism has addicted the planet to a mass-market consumer culture, fed by an insatiable desire for corporate funded entertainment.  We have allowed ourselves, and worse, our children, to become programmed consumers, with a black hole in our soul, into which we cram the things advertisers tell us we need.

I know I’m oversimplifying, but it’s still true.  If we want lasting change it must start with us. I salute the Occupy movement for focusing attention on Corporate oppressors. But realize that we create and empower these Frankenstein monsters.  As long as we’re willing to sell our future for temporary gratification, a cycle of debt and oppression will continue.

Only owners have a legal right to occupy. To claim a moral right we need to own the moral ground we stand on.  Every individual and family should strive for ownership, at all levels, to advance the occupation. GoHuman seeks to build ownership, at the local level.  We wish to empower small, local businesses and their customers to occupy and regain ownership of their own communities.  One backyard at a time!

When we eat, shop and work in establishments who don’t invest locally, it creates a downward spiral in local economies. We enable those large corporations to wring success and profit out of our communities until they become identical strip-malls of interchangeable shops and restaurants.

The problem of competing with the “big boys” is nothing new. Back in the Wild West (as opposed to the Wild Web), many felt powerless to stand up for themselves, which is why “The Great Equalizer,” aka the Colt 45 handgun, was so successful. To quote the manufacturer, Samuel Colt, “God made them all, Colt made them equal.”

Fast forward to today, where debates still rage on as to the handgun’s place in American society. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker recently signed into law the right of Wisconsin residents to carry concealed firearms, leaving Illinois as the only U.S. State which does not allow this. We are not extolling the virtues of violence; remember that the Colt .45 was also called “The Peacemaker.” In the right hands, it was a defense against violence, greed and murder.

What set this trusty six-shooter apart from other guns wasn’t actually the gun – it was the bullets. Or better said, cartridges. With a .45 in reach anyone could load and shoot quickly, in all kinds of weather. A man on his own could be armed and defending himself in seconds, giving rise to the slogan: “Fear no man regardless of his size . . . pull me, and I will equalize.”

So, what can be your Great Equalizer, helping you to compete against your big competitors with even bigger marketing budgets?

One answer is staring you in the face right now (hint, it’s not the gun).

David can have the edge on Goliath. The small local business can offer something people are hungering for – a reliable service, from someone they can trust, because other local customers recommend them and use them again and again. A service from someone who cares about reputation in the local community, and who doesn’t have to charge more just to throw untold amounts of money at huge advertising costs.

GoHuman provides you with a showcase to post the abilities of your business, and the recommendations of your customers. That lets you get on with doing what you do best. Looking after your business, looking after your customers, looking after your community.

Even just the free subscription level offered by GoHuman goes a long way towards levelling the playing field. You can post 5 free postings, each one targeted at a specific zip code, or perhaps focusing on a specific area of your offerings.

Which brings me to one more piece of trivia about the Colt 45. Most users never loaded it with its full complement of 6 bullets. Just 5, and for safety sake, one empty chamber to rest the hammer on. 5 shots.

Get your free 5 shots now – and get your friends and neighbours to recommend your services. Get the new Great Equalizer — and help GoHuman to build your local community, and your business.

But what about the little guys, the small business owners, the kind of folks who make up the heart of the GoHuman community? Is it okay for them to be greedy, because their greed may not cause quite as much harm? Or because they are only greedy for thousands — rather than for millions or billions?

It’s helpful to consider these kinds of questions, because the motives which drive us to become entrepreneurs have a strong influence on how we conduct our businesses. Many people take pride in what they do and in our culture that is seen as positive. I must admit that pride motivates a lot of people to do good things. But pride can also motivate people to do bad things because pride – at its core – is a selfish motive, just as greed is a selfish motive. I believe that greed is actually based on pride. Pride leads people to want to be number one, just for the sake of being number one. Whom does that serve? It serves the self, and our own ego.

If we are motivated by pride, it can have several negative consequences on our business. Pride tends to rob us of our objectivity. For example: When customers complain about our service, we become defensive instead of realistically looking at what we could improve. This kind of pride is focused on superficial concerns, and it does not create loyal customers, but rather hurts the bottom line.

Alternately, when the motive is a genuine desire to serve the customer, we strive to do our best for them. We put pride aside and and avoid cutting corners or cheating in any way, even when the customer does not realize it. This kind of give-rather-than-get approach, when done in a smart and thoughtful way, will pay dividends for both our business and our customers. By de-emphasizing pride and greed at the local level, we can build a better community than what the big shots in the financial centers and capitals of this world have created.

Unfortunately for the rest of us who own a small business, we are not too big to fail, and are allowed to do so on a daily basis.  Bigger is not better and oftentimes the backlash against big institutions and the government are played out in the news ad nausea.  But nothing ever seems to change and the big continue to get even bigger, often times with the help of politicians in Washington (case in point, Solyndra).

GoHuman.com is a small player in the internet world with a big message.  We believe that change starts with one person who makes a decision not to go along with the status quo and actually do something.  That “something” can be as simple as moving your bank accounts and loans from Big Brother Bank to a local credit union or community bank.

Let’s not be participants in the next great bank bailout. Let’s also do our part so that it can be said that 64% of the assets in the country controlled by the big banks does not include our assets.  Hopefully, the next chart that comes out will show this percentage has peaked, and is on its way back down.  Then we will know that one person, deciding to make a change, can impact the world…….Go Human!

Why do we at GoHuman.com care about this?  Our motivation and vision is to empower small, local businesses and entrepreneurs to compete with the big guys.   We don’t advocate for free markets – we insist on fair and transparent markets.  In the U.S. and abroad, most rich and powerful corporations and individuals focus their energies on making sure the playing field is, in fact, not level.  They naturally use the idea of a “Free Market” in a dog-eat-dog Darwinian fashion, to make sure they eat instead of being eaten.  They don’t want the market to be fair and transparent, they want to leverage their advantages to outfox everyone else.

Our company and marketplace is built on different ideals and principles.  We’ve fought hard to keep it that way, and we’ll continue to fight for you, the local entrepreneur, so that you have a fair chance at success.

In step with this important fight, this blog hereby announces our “Finance Friday” feature.  Today we’ve focused on a large, national issue, but in upcoming Friday blogs you’ll learn what you need to know about finance to capitalize on your position as a small, locally owned business.

You are the backbone of the global economy, and GoHuman.com will soon be introducing experts who can help you succeed in this very space.  Check them out each week on Finance Friday.