The ongoing business challenges are forcing many entrepreneurial firms to radically change their business models. As the goal for most right now is survival, this radical change ultimately boils down to cash generation and preservation. Clearly driving this reality are increasing sales while decreasing expenses.

There is absolutely nothing magical or dramatically insightful about the above suggestion. Most business people are quite cognizant of this dual imperative. The real challenge for today's entrepreneurial managers is how do I do both in a world where we know there is less purchasing going on? In other words, how can I generate more sales without risking precious cash?

This is where a real opportunity for professional management moves to the front. Cutting expenses are relatively easy. It is a simple spreadsheet exercise that requires only implementation. The real risk is that this expense reduction is seen by the entrepreneurial manager as his or her panacea. It is not! It is merely a part of an overall approach to a solution. Expenses can only be cut so far until what remains is no longer a viable business, so the revenue generation side has to be expanded.

But now we are back to the risk of cash. This is where calculated risk-taking has to figure into the survival strategy. On one hand you know that if you do nothing but continue to lower expenses, you save

some cash but sooner or later you will cease to be a business. So you know your risk if you follow only this course of action, you just might not know the exact timeframe. Yet the cash risk issue makes you uncomfortable.

Again any bridge to security in these challenging times is just an illusion. Accepting this is an important emotional step for any entrepreneurial manager. It's almost at the point of coming to grips with the fact that you have nothing to lose so why not let's try something crazy?

Why not take all or a large portion of the expense reductions and redirect these funds into sales and marketing? A simple dialogue with a trusted customer along the lines of what would it take for us to do a deal might very well reveal a vein of insanity that might just be crazy enough to succeed.

The same holds true for similar questions and discussions with salespeople and employees. This is not the time to be timid, backward looking, or dogmatically attached to the past. Please remember: We're talking about survival here.

Unfortunately for many amateur managers, there is no simple cookbook recipe, no one size fits all, no risk-free textbook approach and solution for the challenges to their businesses.

Fortunately for those professionals willing to take risks, this search by amateurs for the impossible magic bullet becomes their window of significant opportunity.

John F. Riddell Jr., director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Growth-Hamilton County, writes every other Tuesday about entrepreneurs and their impact on companies and the marketplace. Submit comments to his attention by writing to Business Editor John Vass Jr., Chattanooga Times Free Press, P.O. Box 1447, Chattanooga, TN 37401-1447, or by e-mailing him at business@timesfreepress.com