Main Street Edge
The Dinosaur Question
What one coach’s COVID-era staff meeting can teach every independent business owner right now.
The story goes that during the uncertainty of COVID, college football coach Nick Saban opened a staff meeting with an odd question.
“Did anyone see any dinosaurs on the way to work this morning?”
Silence. Then: “No? Because they didn’t adapt.”That was the whole point. No slide deck, no motivational poster. Just a staff full of people who suddenly understood something simple: the environment was what it was. Nobody in that room could change it. But they could change how they responded to it.
That message applies just as well to a business a few exits off the highway as it does to a football program.
The environment nobody asked for
Right now, independent business owners are dealing with conditions nobody asked for and nobody controls: AI reshaping how customers search, compare, and buy. Softening pricing from competitors willing to operate on thinner margins. Inflation squeezing both sides of the ledger — what you pay and what your customers are willing to pay. A customer base that’s more price-sensitive than it was a few years ago.
None of that goes away because it’s inconvenient. The environment is the environment.
Two things you can’t confuse
Here’s the distinction worth sitting with.
Principles
Doing right by your customers. Standing behind your work. Treating your team well. These don’t change — and they shouldn’t.
Methods
How you price, sell, quote, follow up, and compete. These have to evolve, or you get passed by someone willing to change how they operate.
What adapting actually looks like
For an independent business, that can mean:
- Using AI tools to quote faster, follow up more consistently, or claw back an hour a day that used to disappear into paperwork.
- Rethinking how you price — not to chase the bottom, but to protect the margin that actually matters.
- Being more selective about which customers you chase, because not every price-sensitive shopper is worth winning.
None of that requires becoming a different business. It requires being honest about which of your methods are still working, and which ones are just familiar.
So, what are you doing to adapt?
Here’s the Saban question, adapted for independent business owners: what are you doing to adapt to the new environment?
If you’re not sure how to answer that, that’s usually the first sign it’s worth a second set of eyes.
One conversation. One honest look at where your methods might be behind your principles.
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