By Bert Zethof

When people are emotionally invested in their race horse, it takes a huge mental shift to change horses, even when all signs indicate that the odds are stacked against you. The horse can't go any faster, it's aging, it's injured, or whatever, but you keep betting money on "your" horse.

It's a sad story at the race track but it's an even sadder story when a business owner or investor can't see that their business vision has no future or the idea is too far ahead of its time.

The blinkered entrepreneur throws good money after bad, adamant that sales will come. Seth Godin would say he/she is in a cul-de-sac that leads no where. Often it takes a new leader with a more objective perspective on the business model to finally make the difficult decision for change.

Ballard Power Systems is a good example of a company where the marketable application for a new technology in the near term is quite different from the application originally envisioned.

Ballard was started in 1979 with the dream of commercializing hydrogen fuel cells for automobiles. In 2007, after years of research and large financial losses with no prospect of commercialization anytime soon, the company sold the auto fuel cell assets to Daimler AG and Ford. Who knows whether they will be any more successful in commercializing the technology.

Ballard now focuses its fuel cell technology on materials handling, backup power, residential cogeneration, and heavy duty applications. With new management discipline, its financial prospects appear much brighter.

Here are my "take aways" from this scenario:

- a business owner needs to keep an attitude of objectivity and flexibility,
- the company's mission must be commercially feasible in a realistic timeframe,
- the business model must make sense, and
- business owners need someone they trust to keep them honest by asking the tough questions.

Maybe these take aways can help you to pick the winning horse.