Depending on your perspective, it can be exhilarating or terrifying that industries rise and fall according to the level of demand for their products. That no matter the success of any venture, its days are always numbered. Unless it can adapt. And therein lies the key to productive longevity.
IBM once made typewriters, and if that were all it tried today, likely it’d be doing nothing. Netflix once rented DVDs.
This challenge faces everyone, from those who run the largest companies to single proprietors. Certainly it faces dairy farms. Fifty years ago in Massachusetts there were more than 10,000 dairy farms; today there are about 130.
One of those was started by George Hunt, Sr., a farm he passed on to his son, George Jr., who is passing it to his son, Jimmy — all recently profiled in a Boston Globe article.
One reason their farm still prospers is their willingness to change, as the article puts it — “the critical ingredient that has saved the Hunts from a fate that has befallen thousands of dairies that used to dot the New England countryside.” That change mainly has meant “diversifying” or creating new revenue “streams.” For example, selling new crops, cord wood, and cow manure, and leasing land for solar panels.
No doubt their need to diversify will never end. Just as it has for IBM and Netflix. As it does for you and me, whatever our profession or skill.
Because not only are we each producers, but we are consumers too. And what we can and will pay for as consumers will never stop evolving. Which is another way of saying that as our demand evolves, so must our supply.
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