Business Insight Zone

Sometimes the right thing is to give up.

The other day I got an appeal in the mail to support a little periodical that I used to get. This was a journal that I wrote a few things for some years ago, when being published seemed like reason enough to write. So I worked hard on pieces for no pay, and was glad to do it.

Whenever anyone asked him whether The National Review supported itself financially without donations, the late William F. Buckley would act horrified, asking in return whether you’d require a church to support itself without donations. Certainly I’m not opposed to donations, and I’ve given plenty to my church and to other charities (albeit never to The National Review) over the years.

Does it have to be this hard?

Yet the appeal letter that came in the mail last week — it left me cold. The same old editor is running the publication. He’s a hard-working guy, and he has certainly poured a river of his own sweat and tears into the thing, but the letter made too much of a point of reminding lapsed subscribers (like me) of all his toil. It concentrated on the hardship of keeping the journal going. Its headline asked if I would help “save” the publication. Everything about it reeked of . . . not failure, but of being over-done. Past its time.

I’m a good capitalist, but I don’t think that every venture must support itself financially. Our society needs things like churches and museums and little magazines that will never fly without a little help.

But it also needs charitable ventures (and profit-seeking ones) that aren’t such a chore to run. That aren’t always on the verge of death. That don’t need to make desperate appeals.

Buy local — when it’s better.

In my neighborhood in Austin, there are any number of scrappy local merchants — coffee shops, hardware stores, auto mechanics — that compete well with the national chains. Maybe the sign in the window will encourage you to “Buy Local,” but the merchants don’t complain about how hard it is to compete against the big players. Instead, they do their jobs well. They get better. They offer appealing goods at fair prices.

By contrast, the staleness of that little journal I used to get hardly recommends it for continued toil. The editor, bless him, is richer in stubbornness than he is in taste or flexibility, and it shows. He’s made some improvements, but they’ve been slow in coming — and at some point, people stop caring.

He’s a grown man, and I won’t tell him what to do with his journal. If he’s able to continue, I’m sure he’ll continue — he’s that stubborn — and I hope the publication turns the corner. Who knows — it might turn into something really special if it survived.

But you know what? It wouldn’t be the end of the world if it failed, either. Sometimes it’s time to say goodbye.

What is it time for you to say goodbye to in your working life?

~

(Photo by J Wynia.)

Category: Innovation & Entrepreneurship