Over this past month I’ve been researching how small business teams will work in the future.

This research has led me to attend a number of conferences where I’ve listened to highly successful “web-gurus” talk about how they are making $000s through on-line selling and affiliate marketing and using virtual teams.

There seems to be a number of common threads to all the talks:

• Small teams can provide exceptional products that are often better than equivalent and expensive products from larger businesses.
  This is true and I’ve even invested in two CD’s packed with useful information for under $10, including postage.

• Work such as marketing, web design, product production and delivery, customer contact and much more can be outsourced at a fraction of the current cost.
  Again very true and if there is one aspect to the future of business that will impact even large teams in multinational companies.
  

The final message that I heard from all of them is that individuals and small teams can make $000s without much effort. All you have to do is to buy the product package the “Guru” has developed for $000s and your journey to riches begins…100% money back if not satisfied…guaranteed!

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that people still find the “instant riches” message so attractive. The Lottery, advertisers and TV game shows all contribute to this perception.

Having spoken to and observed some of the “Gurus” telling everyone how easy it is to make money on the web and that it only takes an hour a day it’s interesting that they themselves seem to work very very very hard and very long hours.

Perhaps the learning point is that: Technology makes life easier but the effort that needs to be directed towards producing and maintaining a successful and sustainable outcome for clients changes.
Those that get rich will only do so through hard work, the rest continue to delude themselves.

Maria, together with the Sales Director, has visited the sales team in Exeter to close the local office. The rationale is that the office is not profitable and this is true and from a strategic point of view a good strategy for the company.

She did spend some time with each member of the team in Exeter to explain their options and to offer outsourcing advice. She also provided a list of vacant positions in the company but as these were all based in Manchester (the other side of the country) it was not viewed as being entirely helpful, which in fairness was not entirely her fault!

It has been noticed by other people within the company that she is intent on pleasing the new Sales Director at the expense of other alliances such as the CEO and COO. Indeed the Sales Director is adept at playing office politics and is understood to see himself as having far more “business ability” than his other executive Directors. He has actually been heard to say that it is only a matter of time before the CEO will “have to go!”.

I wonder if Maria is pinning her colours to the Sales Director’s mast too early?

The removal of Rick Wagoner of General Motors and Christian Streiff of Citroen would seem to suggest that those seen as being responsible for poor business performance are being replaced by people not tarnished with the mistakes of the past.

One has to ask if this is the beginning of a cull of top business people seen as responsible for causing the financial crisis and whether it will satisfy people’s anger of like the French revolution simply call for more blood?

During past financial downturns companies would rush to lay off staff as a means of saving money. As a result the time taken to recover was longer because of the need to re-recruit talent. Most businesses seem to be avoiding this mistake in the current financial climate.

However the question must be in people’s minds, “At what point will unemployment be the final option for survival?”.