Not Yet

What three infections reminded me about business

by Chad Pickard

That's the part I keep coming back to. The infection that put me in the hospital for a week, the one that has me on a cocktail of antibiotics and pain medication, the one that's going to end in surgery and months of rebuilding, that infection has shown up before. Three times before, to be exact. Each time it was manageable. Each time I dealt with it and moved on. Each time I had a little more evidence that something wasn't right, and each time I made the same call: not yet.

By the time "not yet" ran out, I was in a hospital bed with bad lighting, a worse mattress, zero coffee, and frantic staff doing their best to fix something that had been quietly getting worse for months.

If I'd gone in the first time, it would have been a week of antibiotics. That's it. No hospital. No surgery. I went from an eight-minute mile to not being able to walk to the end of the block without stopping. I'd have been annoyed for a week and moved on. Instead I'm looking at months of rebuilding, a structured diet, and restrictions I won't fully know until after the surgery. The longer you wait, the bigger the change you're forced to make.

Change is hard for most people. Some move through it like a river, adapting without much friction. Others hit a wall. But most often owners aren't the ones who refuse to change. They're the ones who are too good at surviving. They absorbed COVID. They absorbed the supply chain nightmare. They absorbed margin compression and staffing chaos and every other thing the last five years threw at them. That resilience is real and it's earned. But that same wiring that got them through all of it also makes them very good at absorbing pain that should be a signal to get checked out, not push through.

The infection keeps growing. They just keep surviving it.

You know what the infection looks like in a bike shop. Someone just put a deposit down on a $6,000 bike and that money went straight to payroll. You told yourself you weren't doing a preseason order again and then you did it anyway, for the fourth year in a row. The paycheck you're supposed to be taking has been sitting uncashed for longer than you want to admit. Tariffs are real. Online retailers are real. But they're also very good cover for not looking at what's happening inside the business. Zero net profit isn't a tariff problem. It's the fourth infection.

The business version of antibiotics isn't a turnaround plan. It's stopping the bleed first. Tightening your months supply. Cutting the SKUs that are eating cash. Not pre-ordering product you're hoping will sell. That's the immediate fix. A business that's profitable at any size comes after you've stopped the infection from spreading.

Because here's what the fourth time looks like. It's not a bad month. It's laying off the person who's been with you for eight years. It's downsizing the floor to cover rent. It's the conversation with your accountant that you knew was coming and kept postponing. It's closing. Those aren't dramatic outcomes reserved for someone else. They're what happens when manageable problems get managed one too many times instead of fixed.

A week of antibiotics sounds pretty good to me right now.

Someone in my life pushed me to make the call and go to the hospital. I didn't make it all by myself. If you're the stubborn one in your circle, tell someone now, before it gets bad, that you want them to make that call when the time comes. The same goes for your business. Who's going to tell you when it's time to stop managing the pain and go get it fixed? If you don't have that person, that's where you start. Reach out before the fourth time becomes something that can't be managed anymore.

If you don't have that person, that's where we start. And if you're not sure whether you need one, that's your answer. Schedule a call.