A prominent businessman had developed agriculturally related businesses and was doing well locally. He was located on an island in the Pacific that didn’t have a lot of air traffic, and he planned to expand his distribution outside his small geographic area for more sales. However, the cost of shipping was prohibitively high and forced his marked up prices to not be as competitive as some suppliers.
At this point, the average person would just give up and consign themselves to sell their goods locally, and keep their current operations small to save on overhead. However, Tony Pellegrino is anything but average and he has demonstrated his willingness to take bold steps to overcome obstacles that have stopped others in their tracks. His Cargo Air Bridge, or CAB, is an innovative project that has the goal to reduce shipping cost both to other places, and also back to Saipan. In other words, it will not only benefit farmers, but it will also help reduce the costs of numerous other products that are priced higher on Saipan due to high shipping costs.
When Tony introduced his concept at a lunch meeting I held with several leaders in the community, I could immediately see the benefit and decided to split the BizGrowth Challenge seminar into two days so that one day could be focused for farmers, and Tony could publicly announce his concept at the event.
CAB will benefit not only Saipan, but also Tinian, and Rota farmers, and it will hopefully spur more people to farm their land, as well as get current farmers to expand their operations. If it goes as well as some predict, it could create the second industry that Saipan desperately needs. There is already a local base of farmers that can provide produce to satisfy the growing demand on Guam, and it should encourage more people to start farming their land to reap the benefits offered by the CAB. This means it is a sustainable business with great future potential, and best of all, it is not as susceptible to external factors, such as tourism, garment factories, and the newly resurrected casino initiative.
Business owners face many challenges that stand as obstacles between them and their goals to grow their business. Some see these obstacles as “lemons” that leaves them sour. Those with the right mindset and strategy know how to turn those lemons into lemonade, or take a challenge and turn it into an opportunity.
The first step is to be clear about the challenge and what’s holding you back. Without that clarity, it is difficult to focus on solutions because you will tend to pursue various problems and apply whatever tactics that look good at the moment. Having a fixed challenge in your mind allows you to stay focused and then direct your resources more effectively.
Once you identify your biggest challenge, turn it into a statement or question that will allow you and your brainstorming group to focus on the minor obstacles you face to overcome the biggest challenge. Using the above example, if you grow vegetables and want to sell to another location, but your are unable to sell them competitively because the shipping costs puts your produce at a higher price than the competition, you could turn your challenge into this question: How can I gain a competitive advantage and sell more of my products in a larger market?
Now you can list the obstacles that are in your way. These might include: I don’t have enough goods to get lower bulk shipping rates, there is no union or group effort to negotiate better prices and solve major concerns, shipping costs are too high, I don’t have equipment to improve the efficiency of my operations, etc.
The next step is to turn each obstacle into a goal by restating the obstacles as if you’ve already achieved them. In the above example, the obstacles would be restated as follows: I grow a large enough amount of produce that allows me to get lower shipping rates, I work with a group of other farmers to negotiate better prices and solve major concerns, shipping costs have been lowered, and I have access to the equipment that allows me to improve the efficiency of my operations.
Now you need to rearrange the list in the right order, and ask questions such as: What if my goals were three times bigger, what if I had to accomplish this in half the time, what would need to change? By asking questions that cause you to think outside of the box, you’ll find shortcuts that will allow you to find solutions that are much better and possibly take care of several obstacles/goals at once.
It’s obvious that Tony came up with one solution by securing an aircraft that is dedicated to shipping cargo back and forth at a much reduced costs. However, the next challenge will be for the farmers to step up and grow more produce to improve the efficiency of operations so the aircraft is filled to capacity on each flight. The solutions to achieve the other goals could be: Create a farmer’s coop that coordinates the efforts of the major producers, and get a grant or have farmers pool their money to collectively purchase a tractor with other equipment that can be shared through the coop. These may still be in the works, and once they are resolved, it will hopefully mark an initial turning point in the economy.
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