The most cynical of businesspeople may say that there is no such thing as a second chance. This cold maxim may certainly be true in certain respects, but even when the most cutthroat market seems to claim victims, companies that show fortitude and ingenuity can pull themselves back from the brink. Case in point: these three businesses, each of which has shown that when customer backlash, rising prices, internal mismanagement, and other crises push an organization to the brink of demise, there are nonetheless opportunities to pivot from defeat and prevail despite the odds.
You may be surprised to learn that this company—once known for its distinctive keyboard phone—still exists. Yes, BlackBerry is alive and thriving, but not because it continues to produce smartphones that are flying off the shelves. Rather, its success stems from a bold strategy: shifting into a starkly different market segment.
Although the brand began with the BlackBerry 850 email pager in 1999, it didn’t truly strike gold until 2002 with the release of its cutting-edge phone, which rapidly gained favor with prominent businesspeople, politicians, and celebrities alike. Before long, however, the rise of iPhones and other competitors began edging BlackBerry out of the industry, and by 2015, it represented a meager 1 percent of the smartphone market. Its legal battles and inferior attempts at crafting touchscreen technology didn’t do it any favors either.
But instead of withering away, the company proved its commitment to innovation by taking its tech resources and industry data and rebranding entirely. Where BlackBerry once stood at the forefront of the smartphone segment, it now persists exclusively as a software giant, operating behind the scenes to support both government communications and major corporations. While its name may not be as ubiquitous as it once was, BlackBerry serves as proof that you don’t always have to throw in the towel in the face of apparent imminent doom—sometimes, you just need to find a new place to bear fruit.
Founded in 1969 by Don Fisher to be a cool, laid-back label for teens and young adults, the Gap has long been one of the most popular fashion companies in America. It most firmly held a foothold in the 1990s, but it has retained a steadfast retail presence since then, as have its supplementary brands, Old Navy and Banana Republic.
Even still, the business has been forced in recent decades to close many of its North American and European storefronts, drastic decisions that can be attributed to a few factors. First was the shutting down of copious suburban malls, institutions that helped the Gap thrive in the 1980s and ’90s, then came the rise of ultraconvenient online retailers like Amazon. Pepper in a few smaller-scale issues like failed collaborations and backlash to marketing strategies, and it’s no wonder many began to feel that the company had lost its touch.
But this wasn’t the end for the Gap. The label has endured by making strategic moves, such as partnering with esteemed designer Zac Posen to redefine its style and developing an incredibly user-friendly online shopping experience. Meanwhile, creative leadership under current CEO Richard Dickson has helped revitalize each of the Gap Inc.’s brands, generating growth and improved market value in recent years; Q1 of 2025, for example, showed 28 percent cash growth year over year. Ultimately, it shows that the key to operating in a struggling or highly competitive industry is to keep executing new ideas and maintaining industry authority—despite any prior gaps in success.
Those who associate this company with colorful bricks aplenty may be shocked to learn they weren’t always part of the lineup. Ole Kirk Kristiansen launched the company in 1932 in Denmark to manufacture a line of quaint, handcrafted wooden toys such as a small duck on wheels, intending to engage children while stimulating their minds. It wasn’t until 1949 that LEGO premiered its iconic interlocking plastic bricks, to much customer enthusiasm. After a 1960 fire in its wooden toy factory, the company decided to discontinue its original product line in favor of its increasingly popular building blocks.
Innovation didn’t always serve LEGO, though. Motivated by growing competition and eager to cement its status as a world-class toy, it began partnering with recognizable trademarks like Star Wars in 2000 to create branded brick sets—with varying results. Some of them were only coveted as long as the media they showcased remained popular, fading out of favor when consumers lost interest, and others were too niche, failing to reap satisfactory returns. By 2003, the company was out of cash and projected ongoing years of losses.
However, LEGO was able to pivot quickly. The next year, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp stepped in as CEO to reorganize, selling properties to generate cash and ordering managers at all levels to query staff for lucrative ideas. Combining fiscal austerity with fresh thinking in this way eventually propelled years of healthier profits for the company, marked by 12 percent consumer sales growth in 2024 alone. Knudstorp’s willingness to abandon failing strategies and embrace innovation has helped the business reclaim its former glory—and proved that, when it comes to successful toy companies, LEGO still remains in play.
TAKE ACTION:
Consider the top challenges facing your organization and industry and what steps you can take to overcome each of them.
In this excerpt from Dr. John L. Terry III’s eleventh book, Master Business Success, the business coach, author, and motivational speaker highlights the leadership pitfalls he has seen sink ships and the productive changes that could better steer any entrepreneur’s course toward success.
The ancient Ninjas were masters at the art of chaos, sabotage, mayhem, and destruction. Their target was the unaware. These silent assassins lurked in the shadows, waiting for their target to let down their guard, become distracted, or get lulled into a sense of complacency.
As they stalked their prey, they remained close, often hiding in plain sight. Ninjas simply waited for their victims to lower their guard, allowing them to silently slip in and strike.
The best defense was awareness. Situational awareness, then and now, can prevent us from becoming the prey of a saboteur. Awareness limits our vulnerability.
In business, this same truth applies. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that 65 percent of all small businesses fail in the first ten years. One in five fails in the first twelve months, and half of them have shuttered their doors within five years of opening.
If we dig into the causes of these failures, we can identify seven common saboteurs, lurking in the shadows, waiting to wreak havoc. Like a ninja, these saboteurs bide their time, often hiding in plain sight, ready to strike at the optimum time.
They are waiting for an entrepreneurial misstep.
The first of these Success Saboteurs is a failure to differentiate. If nobody knows who you are, what you do, and how you uniquely do it, you’re the invisible man (or woman). So if you’re telling your story, that’s GREAT. But are you telling your story in such a way that you stand out of the people pile?
Unless you’re doing something differently in your messaging that allows you to (1) Stand Out (2) Get Noticed and (3) Get Ahead of your competition—to the eyes of the public, you’re all the same. Your potential customers are looking for someone who can uniquely solve their specific problems. They are asking: Do you see me? Do you hear me? Do you value me? Do you understand me? Can you help me?[…]
The second Saboteur is poor financial planning. Many entrepreneurs have a tendency to view their business through proverbial rose-colored glasses. They tend to underestimate expenses and overestimate income. They believe the line from Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.”
They might, but it takes time to attract new people to your business. As a result, they mismanage the cash they’ve saved (or borrowed) to start the business. This can also happen when entrepreneurs seek to expand their business, as they don’t count the true cost in terms of time, resources, and money to make the venture profitable. This is one of the primary reasons most small businesses fail in the first ten years.
The third Success Saboteur is having a weak sales and marketing strategy, or no strategy at all. This is an extension of the first business misstep, as your distinctive message needs to be consistent across all your marketing platforms. Your website, newsletters, videos, social media posts, emails, posters, flyers, postcards, and all your marketing efforts must be designed with your ideal customer or client in mind.
Branding is essential—as this is the face you take to the marketplace. It creates a distinct entity, fosters customer loyalty, differentiates you from your competitors, and ultimately drives business growth and success. You want your branding to make a memorable impression on your target audience.
Fourth is a failure to systemize, delegate, and automate. Entrepreneurs often wear too many hats and rely on manual processes that don’t scale. Rather than delegating responsibilities, they tend to try and do it all to save time and money. But if they’re not efficient at performing certain roles in the business, they sabotage their success in the process.
Without solid systems in place, and qualified people to run them, growth becomes chaotic, errors increase, and the entrepreneur ends up bottlenecking the business by trying to do it all. The most successful entrepreneurs spend 80 percent of their time engaged in the 20 percent of things they’re best at doing. The rest, they delegate or outsource.
The fifth Success Saboteur is a lack of customer engagement. The customer is the lifeblood of any business. Why? Because without customers, there is NO business. The customers are the ones who fund the paychecks you and your employees receive each week. They pay the rent and utilities, as well as purchase the equipment and inventory you use.
When we fail to engage the customer, fail to create an exceptional experience for them, and help them feel heard, valued, and appreciated, we cut off our funding, sabotage our success, and limit our potential. When a customer walks in the door, they want something from you. They have a want or a need. How you engage with them and the experience you create will determine if they choose to buy from you, and whether or not they will keep coming back.
Sixth on the list is poor time management. We are all given twenty-four hours a day. No more or no less. How we manage the time we’ve been given either sets us up for success or failure. With all there is to do, it’s easy to ignore the important things that need to get done and focus (instead) on low-value tasks that keep us busy, but not productive. . . .
At the beginning of each day, make a list of all the things that need to be done today. Once that’s done, identify the Top Three that are mission-critical to the success of the business and make that the priority. Once they are done, go back to the list, identify the next “Top Three” and repeat. This is how more things get done in less time, by prioritizing our day.
The last of the Seven Success Saboteurs is a failure to adapt and innovate. When you are content to leave things as they are, you’re accepting of the status quo. 95 percent of businesses live in this world. Markets evolve, technology advances, trends change, and people’s tastes and preferences shift with the times. Failure to adapt and innovate in any industry is a Success Saboteur that not only stifles growth, it can shutter your doors in short order.
Albert Einstein brilliantly observed, “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is the very definition of insanity.
Once we stop to innovate, we start to stagnate. The only way to change our thinking is daily personal growth. This is also how you raise your awareness to recognize the Success Saboteurs lurking in the shadows and take steps to thwart their attack.
For more info, visit blackbeltleadership.com
A three-time martial arts Hall of Fame inductee, Dr. John L. Terry III has spent over fifty years mastering the principles of discipline, focus, and resilience—applying them to leadership, business, and personal growth. As a best-selling author, global speaker, and high-performance coach, he teaches individuals how to become world-class Masters of Who They Are and What They Do. A 2021 United States President’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and a 2022 Brainz Magazine Global 500 Leader and Influencer, Dr. Terry’s expertise has empowered executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals worldwide to unlock their full potential and lead with confidence, purpose, and excellence.
It’s an undeniable fact that we live in a digital-first world. Whether someone is thinking of making a purchase, scheduling an appointment, or simply visiting your store, they will seek your business out online first, and what they find on your website can make all the difference in their decision to choose you. That’s why a well-designed, functional one isn’t optional—it’s a necessity.
Fortunately, creating a professional website doesn’t have to be complicated. With the right approach, you can ensure that yours effectively reflects your brand and supports your goals, even if you don’t have any coding or design experience.
Before diving in, you need to know your “why” for building a website. Do you want it to primarily generate leads, sell products, establish your company’s credibility, or something else? Focus on your target audience, considering what kind of user experience you want them to have along with the specific actions you’d like them to take, such as requesting a quote or browsing your portfolio. These answers will ultimately guide your decisions about the platform, content, and design. Even if your strategy evolves later, a clear starting point will help you craft your site to support your business from the beginning.
One of the most important steps to choosing a site builder is understanding web hosting, which is the space on the server where your website’s files live. (Essentially, this tool is what makes it accessible online.) Some platforms offer it for free with subscription, while others require you to purchase and manage it separately. Top options include Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify for the former and WordPress for the latter.
Rather than committing to one right away, take advantage of free trials or plans to try out a few and explore their features. Once you decide, register a custom domain name, ideally one that matches your business name or comes as close as possible. This will make your site easier to find and seem more credible to customers.
A successful website doesn’t require dozens of pages—rather, most businesses can start with just a few:
If you’re feeling ambitious, you could also add an FAQ section, testimonials, and a blog. Try to keep things simple initially, though, so you can launch your site sooner. You can always expand later.
Chances are customers will visit your website on their mobile devices, making it important that it works just as well there as it does on a computer. You want it to be mobile responsive rather than mobile friendly, meaning it’s not merely shrunken down but reformatted to ensure that the menu bar is always visible, images are resized, and text appears in the right spot.
In terms of design, clean and consistent is always better than cluttered and flashy. Use fonts, colors, and images that reflect your brand, and give each page a clear visual hierarchy. This involves breaking up text and utilizing white space to judiciously make your content balanced and easier to read.
Though visuals are flashy, words are what ultimately drive action. Every page should point users toward the next step with a clear directive, such as “Buy Now,” “Schedule a Consultation,” or “Get a Free Quote.” This kind of straightforward language may seem basic, but it gives the concrete guidance your site needs to promote better engagement and sales.
Even the best website won’t help you grow if no one can find it, and SEO is the key to such visibility. Primarily, in addition to providing quality content, include relevant keywords in your page titles, headlines, and image descriptions, and write unique descriptions and alt texts for pages and images. You can also submit your site to Google Search Console for free to help it show up higher in search results.
Website regulations can vary based on factors like your state and industry, but all businesses should have basic safeguards in place. Make sure to get consent for emails and notifications, clearly state how and why you’re gathering user data, and post a privacy policy and other disclosures that explain your practices. As another layer of protection, you should implement security tools to guard visitor information, especially if you use your site to collect payments or personal data. To help you sort through it all, you could seek the advice of a compliance advisor.
The most important part of creating a website is getting it live, so don’t wait for it to be perfect. A simple, functional site that you can update and improve over time is more valuable than a complex one stuck in draft mode. Continually tweak it as your business grows, and you can ensure that it continues to provide value—for you and your customers.
TAKE ACTION:
Take the first step toward building your website by determining your main goal for it, such as boosting sales or improving your online presence.
Jim Damschroder, co-owner and financial manager of Ashcombe Farm & Greenhouses in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, discusses the business’s history and how it became a year-round staple in its community.
How did you get started at Ashcombe?
After I got my accounting degree from Ohio Wesleyan University, my wife and I wound up in Pennsylvania, where I got a job with a local CPA firm for six years. I then became the CFO of Analytical Laboratory Services Inc. in Middleton and was there for fourteen years. While with the CPA firm, I discovered I loved working with small businesses, learning who they are and how they operate. So when I left my CFO role, I knew I wanted to move into that sector.
That’s ultimately what drew me to Ashcombe Farm & Greenhouses, a small business that’s an anchor in the borough of Mechanicsburg with a long history of community engagement. The owners at the time really needed someone who could help guide the company fiscally, and my skill set was the perfect fit.
What do you do there?
After a decade, financial manager is still my principal role. I take ownership of the financial health of Ashcombe, including budgeting, forecasting, and cash flow along with any daily accounting duties not handled by my assistant—aka my wife, who works here full-time. In recent years, I’ve also absorbed HR responsibilities and overseeing our IT infrastructure. I stay pretty busy.
Walk us through the company’s history.
It started back in 1956 as a wholesale vegetable farm called Ashcombe Vegetable Farm, founded by Glenn and Mary Ellen Gross. Six years later, Glenn formed a corporation and renamed it Ashcombe Farm & Greenhouses to reflect their shift to growing flowers. From there, they expanded gradually by adding more land and greenhouses.
In 1989, a devastating fire wiped out most of the store, but it gave Glenn the opportunity to rebuild bigger, adding a café, bakery, gourmet food section, and gift shop. Today, we operate the same large retail space and offer an ever-changing lineup of plants and products. We also have children’s classes, educational workshops on plant care, community events, and even a repurposed mini school bus we painted green and named Fern, which we use to bring plants to retirement communities and schools.
Glenn and Mary Ellen eventually passed ownership down to three long-time employees, who have now passed ownership to me and general manager Kerri Laudig. Plant production manager Amber Bahn will be joining us very soon. She’s only been here a few years, but she’s amazing at organizing our plant production operations and has a great desire to educate customers and employees. Together, we hope to continue building upon Glenn’s legacy.
How is Ashcombe unique compared to other garden centers?
At our core, we are plant people, so we offer the staples you’d expect, like soils, pots, and herbs. But our niche is that we grow most of our annuals, vegetables, and herbs ourselves. This means we know what soil was used, how often everything was watered, and whether greenhouse-grown plants were hardened off or not (i.e., transitioned from protected indoor climates to outdoor elements). Most garden centers don’t have the space to do this.
We’ve also become a destination rather than just a place to buy plants. Between the many classes, café, and seasonally stocked gift area, we have a variety of experiences for our customers to enjoy throughout the year. Plus, visitors can bring their children or grandchildren to meet our two rabbits and four cats, do a scavenger hunt, or simply explore our retail greenhouses while the adults shop.
Growing plants takes care, patience, luck, and a bit of love, and we want our customers to be just as excited about our products as we are. That’s why we adopted a new tagline a few years ago: “We are growing to please you.” We have a loyal customer base of over 52,000, and we work hard to earn that through not just our consistent plant quality and variety but also our welcoming atmosphere and knowledgeable employees who truly want each person to succeed in growing something they love.
You called Ashcombe an anchor of the community. In what ways do you achieve this reputation?
Honestly, I can’t take credit for that—it’s been that way for a long time. People tell me how they used to come here with their grandparents and now bring their own kids. Many will even have them apply for their first jobs with us since it is such a relaxed and welcoming environment; both of my own kids actually worked in the café during high school and summers.
Beyond that, we continually support community events, like the Letterkenny Army Depot’s welcome event, which helps show what’s available to new families moving into town. We’ve done fundraising for the Girl Scouts, fire companies, school sports teams, and the public library, and some schools take field trips to our facility. You’ll see the Ashcombe name sprinkled throughout the entire Mechanicsburg area.
Are there any difficulties that come with being a seasonally driven business that’s open year-round?
First of all, we typically are only on the positive side of the financials during April, May, and June. The rest of the year, we operate at a deficit. However, it was decided a long time ago that we wanted Ashcombe to be open all twelve months to keep our workers gainfully employed.
To help us stay on track, we have monthly targets and forecasts and hold specific events that help draw customers in. For instance, we host a romance writer book-signing event each February, a backyard barbecue with live music in June, a day in August where we have a mass release of monarch butterflies, and photos with Santa and Mrs. Claus in December. Beyond that, we offer a year-round biweekly story time for kids and a youth summer camp on Fridays in June and July.
Staffing is always the biggest challenge, though. We do a job fair in late February to fill out the plant production department, which is our team of growers, and add to the retail, register, nursery, and plant departments. The hardest part is that we need an army for April and May but then have to reduce hours during summer since most customers have their gardens in place by that point. The hiring time frame eliminates the high-school and college kids, so we often lean into retirees who are looking for a temporary part-time job at a place they know and love.
What’s next for Ashcombe?
We’re always exploring new ideas, like a mini-golf course in our courtyard to serve as a revenue generator with low labor overhead after installation. We’re also looking to upgrade our greenhouse facilities in the next few years. And we recently found out that there are ninety-eight single-family homes set to be constructed within walking distance of us. We’re in talks with the developer to create a walking path to our property so homeowners could easily come visit us and buy plants for their new yards. It’s another interesting and exciting opportunity to connect with the community.
For more info, visit ashcombe.com
TAKE ACTION:
Reflect on how you could apply Ashcombe’s steadfast strategies within your organization.
