The setting is reminiscent of a vintage war room. Nondescript. Tight quarters. Men huddled around a conference table. A commanding figure at the head.
Standing with one leg propped on his chair, Herb Meyer drops phrases like, “classic case of nuts with nukes,” “Iran has the bomb” and “buckle your seat belts.”
Only thing, this is no war room. This is the April meeting for members of Vistage, a private advisory board for executives and business owners. Springfield Vistage Chairman Jeff Hindman secured Meyer, a former CIA assistant, for the daylong meeting at Springfield Grocer Co.
What seems like an odd pairing on the surface turns into a deep dive on global demography with pertinent business application. Think: doing business like the military, with the right mix of intelligence, gumption and action. After doing “45 orbits around the planet,” Meyer turns war talks toward business.
On one of the orbits, though, he gives a genuine warning: “If I were running a business in Springfield, Mo., I would have a little extra cash handy,” he says, in case of a terrorist attack or government shutdown. “You don’t need to get paid Thursday, but you’ve got people who do. We’re talking milk money.”
These aren’t conspiracy theories or radical political rhetoric. Meyer has lived this stuff. It’s in his blood, just the way he thinks and talks.
Years working in global intelligence and with international spies will do that. As special assistant to CIA Director Bill Casey, 1981–87, Meyer was a central player in the Reagan-led take-down of the Soviet Union. Also serving a stint as vice chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council, he managed production of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimates and other top-secret projections.
Meyer’s shining moment was when he forecast the Soviet Union’s collapse – the first U.S. government official to do so – for which he received the U.S. National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal. And here he is, addressing a half-dozen executives in a small conference room overlooking a Springfield food distributor.
“The biggest secret about intelligence: You have to know what you’re looking for to find it,” he tells the group more than halfway through the three-hour discourse. Then, he says, people begin to see things they’ve never seen before.
He pointed the CEOs and small-business owners to look for population trends and their connections to consumer buying. On a global level, the population is aging, and birth rates are shrinking. He says Europe is dying, and China is staring down a fertility rate of 1.6 (births per woman), handcuffed for years by its one-child policy.
Russia’s response: President Vladimir Putin declared Sept. 12, 2008, Family Contact Day to promote procreation. On that date, aka Conception Day, workers are given afternoons off and prizes are bestowed on couples who have a child nine months to the date later. Can’t fault Putin for trying.
Meyer says business opportunities are packed within such statistics. Potential to tap into the aging population rests in health care products, entertainment, housing, services and protein foods, he says, pointing to the markets for retrofitting and building single-occupied homes. “You have to look at different products and services because of changing demographics. Either you provide it to them, or somebody else will,” Meyer says.
The first truly global middle class is emerging, and for intelligent business minds, Meyer says that means a customer base growing at 50-100 million people a year. According to Ernst & Young, 3 billion people are expected to enter the world’s middle class, mostly in emerging markets, by 2030.
Closer to home, Meyer says millions of Mexican immigrants present an opportunity. “What kind of housing do we need for a large immigrant population?” he asks, but cautions the country’s burgeoning middle class could pull them back across the border.
The point is, the world is growing increasingly smaller for U.S. companies and businesspeople. Meyer says Domino’s and KFC’s biggest franchisees are in Nigeria, and Caterpillar is sending machinery to places it never heard of before. Marriott is building a hotel in Rwanda. “People like you are going there and cutting deals,” he tells the group.
“Now you know what to look for ... ask so what? What does this mean for my business?”
Back to the war analogy, Meyer offers a challenge to think of business plans as offensive strategies rather than defensive plans.
“If you want to win in business, play offense,” Meyer says, noting the United States played defense in the Cold War for three decades until 1979–80.
The first step: Sit down in the office, close the door and turn off the cellphone. “Mentally raise yourself 100 feet above your business and ask if your model is playing offense or defense,” he says, prompting all the execs in the room to start scratching notes. “You need to think this through.”
But don’t leave it there. He says the next step is to verbalize the findings with others, in networking groups, in the office. As Meyer would say, now you know.
Springfield Business Journal Editor Eric Olson can be reached at eolson@sbj.net.
