From being consumers to contributors #2

salam ala Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen

wa sallahu wa salam ala, even more serene.

Muhammad Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam this even considering because

my brothers, sisters and

in my business consulting practice,

one of the things I do sometimes when speaking to promoter groups, which is the business owners,

I tell them to

think about

what

can put me out of business in the next three years.

They're not saying next 20 years, next two years, what can throw me and put me out of business in the next two years?

Think about that consciously. And obviously, logically, the next question is, therefore, what's your strategy to remain in business not get thrown up.

But most people don't think that so they don't know what to do, because they haven't thought,

especially if the business is doing well,

then there is this underlying assumption that it will continue to do it, it will always do well.

Nothing can go wrong with the business.

You don't actually articulate that. But this is the general feeling. Nobody thinks about a threat. Nobody likes anyone who reminds them that there might be a threat.

This is one of the biggest problems in life if people the whole point is shooting.

The bearer of bad news doesn't change the news. Right? If somebody tells you that look, three years from now, where do we order business? And you should the guy, what does matter? It doesn't matter. Because three years sunset, you won't be audible.

If he What if what he's saying is right. Now, just to give you a quick one.

We have seen in the recent past, and there are any number of such

history, but in the recent past, we have seen how technology completely threw

businesses, you know, it threw them off completely. Technology give you give you a couple of examples.

One is from the early 90s.

In the travel trade, tourism business, so if you have if you had a travel agency,

they used to use

these big books, they were basically mathematically calculated. tables have travel routes. So if you go to the your travel agency, and you say, Look, I need to go, I'm traveling out of New York JFK, and I need to go to universities and from universities, I need to go to,

say, Madrid, and from Madrid, I need to go to London. And from London, I want to go home to India or Pakistan somewhere. And then I want to come back, right.

So in pre 90s, you had the travel agent, who would work out this route for you.

And if he was a good travel agent, which were not that many of them, maybe there's one or two routes.

And so this is one option, the other option, instead of flying out of JFK, if you fly out of Dallas, this is a fair difference or whatever, right?

And that gives you a head. Now in the early 90s. If I were not mistaken, around 91 or something like that.

Came a software product called Galileo.

Galileo was a product that ran on the on your computer.

Before that, the travel agent itself gave you this itinerary they took usually what if they were very, very good. They gave it to you in about two days, 48 hours, maybe. Usually, it would take them almost a week to do all of this. Well, you're not the only customers, other people.

With Galileo,

suddenly,

you had the option of giving the client

maybe two maybe three itineraries in a matter of three minutes.

So from three days it went to three minutes. Right. Now interesting thing was I was at that time heading a travel agency. So I know this very first time. When I got that job. I actually attended a travel ticketing course.

Now these books were

Like, double the size of a telephone directly, so each each book was maybe six inches thick, big, thick things. There were three of them.

So we had to go through these books, and it was a torturous course. But anyway I did I thought to myself, there's no point, how can I help the agency and I don't know what's going on. So I have to write in this course.

Now, in those days, the travel agent who could do go through these books fast and come up with an idea at first was worth their weight in gold. They were like prima donnas. They could do whatever they wanted, they want anything you wanted the travel agency owner would give you

because you are the bread and butter if you live this guy's business is God because you know, he can

guess what happened to them.

The day after Galileo was really was released

their value their brand value in the market went from hero to zero in one second.

Because now with a computer program,

somebody who didn't know is hetero he still could just sit in front of the computer run the program the program gives the attendees he passes them on to the customer.

And those big books became useful to him you know, for the vertically challenged to sit on.

address that raise the rank in society right.

This is what technology does.

We saw for example, what happened to the all the not only the mom and pop stores but take for example, Black Friday, what what black What did Black Friday used to be in this country a couple of years ago, there will be riots right?

Here today,

nobody cares.

Why Amazon?

Online shopping, much more convenient, you order it get delivered to your door, you don't have to carry it around very thing.

And return again, he rather pick you up from your door or there is a drop off point you drop it off, you get a full refund, no questions asked.

I was upgraded. And all today people go to a shop not to buy. But to physically see the thing.

Especially high ticket items, generally they go to physically see it so they go to the shop. And that's kind of very, you know, unkind

unkind to the job one. So he's getting footfall for nothing, you're going there to see the thing, and then you're buying it on Amazon.

And because of aggregation, economies of scale, Amazon can actually give you a lower price

for almost everything, then you can get anywhere else because of the bulk that they buy from including after counter medicines.

You buy the same thing in CVS, it cost you much more than buying it off Amazon, which is same of the counter thing of what you don't need a prescription for, you don't need to go to CVS.

So the question therefore to ask is what is it and same thing as the Uber is another one Uber Eats otherwise? Any number of such examples of, of how businesses which were good businesses

went out of business because they did not anticipate this, what can throw me out of the business in the next three years? The reason I'm saying all this is not because of business, but for two reasons. One is this is a very good system to use for yourself your own personal equity, your own personal credit brand equity called what you want your own personal equity in the market, what is my market rate?

If I apply for a job today, what what would I get?

How can I enhance that?

My skill set what is likely to throw me out of business in a matter of three years? This is a very good question to ask yourself. And as I told you, the more comfortable you are feeling in your current skill set, believe me you are in that much danger.

The danger that you are in is proportionate to the comfort that you're feeling right now. If you feel on I think an abdomen goodbye rather than nowhere.

You are you're in big time danger. So assess yourself. And second reason I'm saying this because we as the Muslim ummah,

we need to have these conversations.

To say what will within quotes throw us out of business meaning that we lose value

in the within quotes market, the market market as a buying and selling market, the meanings are

Edie

what is it that will make us lose value in society?

Right? These are not easy conversations. These are tough conversations. But dying is tougher

as simple as that if you think everything's combination is difficult try dying. Somebody said to the president Howard Howard is expensive he said well,

if you think Howard is expensive try ignorance. If you think knowledge is expensive try ignorance is like that if you think having a conversation like this is difficult

see what happens when you become extinct.

Why were four assaults on inshallah tomorrow? Today Believe it or this is Ask yourself this question in the next three years, what can throw me out of business what can kill me What can destroy my current market value?

Right.

Tomorrow we talk about what gives you market well in the first place, what do you how do you know what market value you have? So what gives you market value? How do you assess market value?

Insha Allah sallallahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sahbihi wa