After helping thousands of small businesses, here are 6 of the most common business development 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.