Succeeding in Your Business Time to depart

Cliff Ennico

In February 2002, a very lovely, brilliant and wonderful lady named Jane Applegate offered me the opportunity to continue her weekly syndicated column, “Succeeding in Small Business,” for Creators Syndicate.

I jumped at the opportunity, changing the name slightly to “Succeeding in Your Business,” and committed from the beginning to say something each week that would make you stop and think about better ways to run your business — something unique, different and thought-provoking you were not likely to see anywhere else either in print or online. It will come as no surprise to my readers that I majored in history and philosophy, not business and economics, when I was in college, and my goal with this column was to provide a deeper dive on running an entrepreneurial business than the usual “10 ways to improve your (fill in the blank)” canned business advice.

It’s up to you to decide whether or not I succeeded.

Since 2002 I have worked with over 2,000 law and business consulting clients and have responded to over 15,000 emails and phone calls from small-business owners around the world seeking advice. Many of the stories you have read about in this column come directly from their experiences in the “real world.”

And except for my paying law clients (you know who you are), I have never charged a penny for any of it.

But all things must come to an end, and it is with a heavy heart (and an even heavier golf bag) that this will be my last “Succeeding in Your Business” column for Creators Syndicate.

I cannot tell you what a privilege it has been to hear from all of you over the years, and I hope at least some of my advice, resources and recommendations were useful. I am extremely grateful for the help and support I have received from Creators Syndicate, especially the nine editors who have cut their teeth on my lawyerly prose each week.

As for me, I am far from retiring. I will still operate my small-business law and consulting practice at www.cliffennico.com, and will still take questions from entrepreneurs and smallbusiness owners at www.succeedinginyourbusiness.com, although my response time may be a bit slower than it used to be. For those of you who are lawyers, you can still see my small-business legal videos on the New York State Bar Association website and on the Lawline website and subscribe to my publications on business, contract and corporate law on the Thomson Reuters website.

I will also continue to grow my small-business advice channel on YouTube. Search the site for “Cliff Ennico” to see my 50-plus one-hour videos on just about every aspect of running a business.

And if you really, truly miss my weekly ruminations, there is an archive of over 1,100 past columns floating around the web somewhere — search my name and you will be quite surprised at what turns up (and I probably will be as well).

Over the past 21 years, I have witnessed many changes in the way small businesses and their owners operate, and have tried to inform and educate my readers about them, including:

• The sunset of brick-and-mortar retail and the rise of e-commerce.
• The proliferation of social media as a means of promoting even local businesses nationally and (sometimes) globally.
• Increasing concerns about data privacy and how (and if) small businesses operating primarily on the web should deal with them.
• Continuing changes in the laws, taxes and regulations affecting small business.
• A global pandemic, four presidential administrations, a looming cold war with China, climate change, artificial intelligence, 14 years of schlepping from Connecticut to Missouri and back again (don’t ask) and far too many Sundays trying to figure out what I can write about that hasn’t been said a gazillion times already.
Throughout that time, however, I have been guided by two essential convictions:
• That the future of American business and the American economy rests with entrepreneurs, small-business owners, self-employed professionals and consultants and companies that are today in their infancy, not with giant behemoth corporations; and
• That there cannot be enough real-world advice and information for them to help them through their growing pains.

Things are going to happen a lot faster in the future. While my generation (the boomers) had to adapt to a rapidly changing business landscape, the next generation will have to keep dodging bullets as in a first-person shooter video game while at the same time keeping one step ahead of the software bots, avoiding obsolescence, staying relevant and making sure they get paid.

My best advice: Be sure to find time to read some history, philosophy and great literature and interact with great art, music and drama. Science, math and economics make you smart, but it’s the humanities that make life worthwhile. The AIs may write accurate and even compelling prose, but they will never understand human nature. And understanding human nature is the key to succeeding in your business.

Thanks again for making the past 21 years of this column rewarding, fulfilling and personally satisfying. It has been an honor and an absolute blast to serve you.

Cliff Ennico (crennico@gmail.com) is a syndicated columnist, author and former host of the PBS television series “Money Hunt.”

COPYRIGHT 2023 CLIFFORD R. ENNICO
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