It’s a law of business physics I’ve found. Companies without a lot of cash usually get a lot smarter about what they are doing because they realize their time in business may be drawing to an end. Not always, of course, but enough times to mention.

The opposite seems to be true as well. A company with a lot of cash seems to lull itself to sleep with the dangerous idea that “we can’t lose, we’re — fill in the blank yourself.” It seems that the more cash in the bank can change how you feel about your company’s place in the marketplace. This makes a company stay with a bad idea much longer than they should simply because they have the resources to do so. It also blurs the company’s market focus and they often lose site of what their customers want.

Large or small, cash is king today. So be careful with it and how you spend it. And that includes brand marketing. Sometimes the best thing you can do is pull back, regroup, reorient, and then re-launch.

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