In many endeavors in life, rebuilding is more expensive than the original construction. Resources must be spent to clear away the faulty or damaged structure, just to start over. The same metaphor is useful when discussing reputations. Let’s dig.
As business owners in Minneapolis (and all around the country) found out, business insurance is a very tricky thing. While you may be covered for normal mishaps, often riots are considered exclusionary events. And even when insurance covers your loss, inadequate coverage amounts can be venture-enders. Many businesses found out that the limits on their coverage barely covered demolition of the old, riot-torn structures—they didn’t have enough to actually re-build their buildings (or renew their formerly profitable, job-providing businesses).
Prior to COVID-19 shut-downs and months of civil unrest, you may have been the proud owner of a successful business. Many of these were of the 30-year, overnight success varieties. Years of putting everything you have—time, money, effort, risk, credit, and all of the other things needed to make it work—and now, you have an earned success story. Maybe you were planning to expand, reap the rewards of your venture, or possibly pass down your working firm to your heirs. Instead, you got the double-whammy: for months, customers were prevented from shopping at your store. Not due to poor management or bad planning, but due to the government reactions to COVID-19. Unless you were a big-box retailer, like Walmart or Costco, you were likely deemed a ‘non-essential’ business (whatever that means), so you went from thriving to zero customers overnight. Then came then second shoe: the riots. People were burning, looting, and destroying businesses that had nothing to do with the police, George Floyd, or any aspect of the dilemma. The aftermath: you now have nothing to expand upon, no rewards to reap, nothing to pass down to anyone—you have to start completely over. Except you’re starting at less than zero, given the demolition and rebuilding costs. If you chose to drop it all, and not start over, it would be completely understandable. Heartbreaking, but understandable.
What is a reputation worth? What is an image based upon integrity, knowledge, and honesty valued at? Whatever that mythical number is, you can exceed it easily: just lose that image with poor judgement, bad choices, dishonesty, and criminal activity. Because ‘trust’ is MUCH harder to re-establish after losing it. An example: Network news organizations. For decades, they were the public’s view on the happenings of the world. Some of the most respected, trusted public people were news anchors. We believed what they told us, usually without reservations. But for many of the consuming public, that changed recently. They found out that the news is decidedly filtered, and that the broadcasts are not only pushing a singular viewpoint, often they flat-out lie to get that viewpoint out. The cracks in the façade started with Dan Rather, stipulating as fact a pure fictional letter, with the sole purpose of damaging the re-election of George W. Bush. Then, Brian Williams was caught in SEVERAL deliberate misstatements of fact (lies). For the last several years, many news bureaus were pushing a nightly, breathless lie: Donald Trump colluded with Russia to ‘steal’ the 2016 Presidential election! Except that was also pure fantasy, or at the very least, wishful thinking. They were so eager to take down Trump (Watergate-style), they ran with questionable (now proven false), unreliable sources—just to get that story on the air. And they did so for nearly three straight years! Yet none of it was true. Not one of their ’investigative’ staff thought to dig deep enough to hit the truth. Likely, because they WANTED the story to be true.
In both the business owners’ and news networks’ cases, they are now re-starting at less than zero. The business owners are worse off than they started, both financially and risk-wise: after the last few years of events, it must require DEEP thought before putting it all on the line again. And news bureaus? There is a LARGE section of the population that simply will never trust or believe them again. Ever. Oh sure, they can continue their present ways, playing to the true believers that will go with their view because they share it, regardless of that view’s veracity. But the viewing audience is dwindling. Rebuilding is VERY tough.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article! Feel free to add comments (good or bad) in the box below. In addition, there is a link at the bottom of the article to view other items I’ve written at Global Liberty Media. Enjoy!
