6 Common Errors That Crush Small Businesses

By Jim Connolly - Fri, 01/27/2012 - 12:23pm.

What would you add to the list?

After 17 years spent helping thousands of small businesses, here are 6 of the most common errors I’ve seen.

Negative association. There is an undeniable link between how successful you will be, and the people you habitually associate with. Mix with pessimists and those lacking direction and one day, everything they have will be yours!
Starting without the commitment to finish. Many small business owners are wonderful at starting projects, but less good at finishing them. If you have an idea and you think enough of it to get started, at least give it the effort it needs in order to fly or flop. Don’t quit at the first hurdle.
Applying an employee mindset to the development of their business. When a business owner has an employee mindset, rather than the mindset of an entrepreneur, their focus is on avoiding loss, rather than attracting success. They starve their business of the resources it desperately needs, like expert help, seeing it as too risky. They choose to ‘save money’ and do everything themselves, then slowly go broke.
Opting for ease over effort. Sometimes the easy route is the right route. Sometimes it isn’t. When a business owner looks for the easy way, rather than the correct way, they will miss opportunities and make some very costly errors.
Pestering people. People hate being pestered or pursued. Attract the help and business leads you need, don’t try and annoy your way to success. If you don’t know how, find someone who does and watch what happens to your results. You will also be amazed how much more fun the business of business is, when people come to YOU. If you are not one of the people in point number 3, I can help you.
Selling based on fees or prices. If your marketing is based around being cheap, you will lose. Your profits will be low and you will attract the lowest value clients. Just as importantly, thanks to Google, I can find 10 people doing whatever you do, for less, in just a few minutes. Get out of the race to the bottom. Pump more value into what you do, rather than just lowering the price or fee. Then, think about joining the race to the top. Here is a series of 3 posts, to show you how to work for the best clients and highest fees.

The failure of a business or any enterprise, is seldom the result of a single, cataclysmic event. It’s almost always the result of small errors in judgement, repeated regularly. If you identify any of those 6 points in your own business development, get to work on them.

I’d be interested to know what you would add to that list and why?

Comments

News Tags: Entrepreneur, Small Business, Failure

About the author:
Jim Connolly has worked in marketing for 24 years and had his own successful marketing business since the mid 1990's. Jim is known worldwide for his ability to help small businesses make massively more sales and boost their profits. Although Jim now works exclusively with small businesses, he has worked with people from some of the best known companies in the world. These include; The BBC, Disney, Rothschilds, Mitsibishi, Hewlett Packard, Edelman and AWD PLC plus many more. To see how he can help your small business, visit his blog at Jim's Marketing Blog.

Comments

By Stephen (SBN reader) - Fri, 01/27/2012 - 5:54pm.

Number 6

One thing that goes along with number 6 is reputation. When a company is playing the pricing game they could soon gain a reputation that they are cheap. They will loose their value proposition and lose customers.

By Gym Rank (SBN reader) - Sat, 01/28/2012 - 8:10am.

SEO Services India

The story is 100% correct as per my business experience from employee to owner of my business WebAllWays.com. I got the experience as this article story explains. Thanks to the writer.

By Ricky (SBN reader) - Sat, 01/28/2012 - 12:52pm.

I agree with #1. A good

I agree with #1. A good friend of our said many years ago and today I stick to that advice "if you want to be successful, associate with people that are successful". How true.

By Kevin (SBN reader) - Sun, 01/29/2012 - 4:59pm.

Excellent Points

They are all excellent points and something that every business owner should pay closer attention to. I do have to add that goals should be a big part of the list, even though they could easily be nudged into one or two of these errors. A business owner needs goals in order to focus, stay on track and reach individual levels of achievement with their operations.

By Guest (SBN reader) - Tue, 01/31/2012 - 1:54am.

Great advice

All excellent points, most of which I learned the hard way, reaching the bottom financially, mentally, emotionally, etc. and on my slow way to business recovery now. Any entrepreneur needs to step back every few days or weeks, look at what's going wrong with an open, insightful mind and make things go much better.

On pestering, sometimes being the people-avoider myself, I haven't pestered enough (to get invoices paid, occasionally touch base to see if a client needs more work, suggest more offerings, etc.). But of course, if you find yourself on the "pestering" level with clients, trying for more business, you're efforts would indeed be better focused attracting more business.

> "work for the best clients"

This is critical. I've found I can pretty much tell who's going to be a bad client from the initial phone call. A bad client (doesn't pay, or not on time, sends your stress levels off the charts, is sue-happy, etc.) is never worth working with, no matter how desperate you think you are! So yes, do whatever it takes to get good rates, with good clients. Anything else is tragically dumb.

There are alot of other things that could be added, such as careful compliance with taxes and government regulations, filings, etc., but I've written enough for today!

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