Ten Common Mistakes That Could Be Holding You Back And Stop You From Having The Business You
Really Want

Is there potential for improvement in your business?

Are you making some of these common mistakes in your role as the business owner and boss?

Just take our test by reading through and asking yourself whether you are making these mistakes. Please be honest with yourself and it may help to grade your answer - Never, Sometimes, Always. 

The issues are shown below and then repeated with comments.

1 Failing to have a clear vision for your business in the future.

2 Failing to have written goals.

3 Failing to manage your time.

4 Working too many hours.

5 Accepting too small a reward.

6 Failing to push for continuous improvement.

7 Not following your passion.

8 Not putting your great ideas into action.

9 Suffering from tunnel vision.

10 Failing to make your business work well without you.

Below is an explanation of why each of these is important and which could cause your sales and profits to be lower than they could and should be.

1 - Failing to have a clear vision for your business in the future.

Close your eyes and imagine. Can you see a picture of your business in two, five or even ten years time? What does it look like? Is it the business you want? A business to be proud of?

Unfortunately many small business owners don't have a clear destination in mind so there is no emotional commitment to achieving a desired result.

There's no "pull" from seeing the business you want and no pressure that comes from recognising the gap between your vision and the current reality of your business.

If you don't have a vision for your business, every decision you make is tactical and all your focus is on solving short term issues and problems. Your business now is probably very similar to how it was a year ago and provided your competitors stay asleep, there will be little change to your business next year or the year after that.

Corrective action - set a vision for how your business will look and perform.

2 - Failing to have written goals.

Even if you have a vision, have you made the important next step of having written goals? Have you set targets for what you want to achieve over the next three, six or twelve months to bring your vision closer to being achieved?

It's been proven that people who commit to written goals are much more successful than those who don't.

Most great achievers write down their goals. They regularly review them and work out the steps needed to bring success.

If you haven't written down your goals or you haven't even set any, ask yourself why not?

Is it because you don't know what you want to achieve? Are you afraid of failing (but remember just writing down your goals makes it more likely you will succeed) or perhaps you are frightened of success?

Sounds crazy doesn't it? To be afraid of success! But some people are because they fear it will change them or they just feel that they are not worthy. But believe me - if you achieve remarkable success while maintaining high ethical standards you deserve all the rewards that success brings.

Corrective action - take your vision and turn it into goals in each of the main areas of the business. What are the measurable goals in five years time?

Then work backwards so that you have goals for your business in 12 months time. What does that mean for the next quarter, the month, this week?

Write down your goals and review every day. 

One of the most common reasons for not setting goals is because you don't have the time, so that brings me on to the next common mistake business owners make.

3 - Failing to manage your time.

There is so much to do when you own and run a small business but you must keep reminding yourself that you don't have to do it all yourself.

Employ staff and delegate or outsource all the tasks that don't make the best use of your time.

It is essential that you focus on the important tasks that will make a real difference to the future of your business, yourself and your family.

But what's important? That's where the vision and your goals help clarify where you should be spending your time and where you must spend your time if you are going to build the best business that you can.

Corrective action - start a time log to record where your time is spent. Review it. What wastes your time? What are you doing that you shouldn't be?

Plan out your day and a few key activities but leave plenty of time for the unexpected interruptions and sudden, urgent tasks. Review the plan at the end of the day and make sure that you have achieved what you intended.

4 - Working too many hours.

It's vital that you try to achieve a work/life balance that works for you and your family.

Nobody can work continuously and give their best. The human brain doesn't work like that. You are getting less and less for each hour you spend working in your business beyond your own sustainable level so stop. By doing less and passing the work to others you will achieve more.

Corrective action - set a maximum number of hours you will work in a day or a week. Plan treats for yourself and your family that will get you away from work. You will feel better and your productivity will increase.

5 - Accepting too small a reward.

Are you getting the financial rewards from your business that you should be for your time, effort, entrepreneurial ideas and the risks you take?

Please just answer these two questions for me:

• Do you earn less (in salary, benefits and profit) than it would cost to pay other people to do the work you are doing to the same standard?
• Would any investor accept the returns your business generates after paying you a fair salary for the work done?

If the answer is "No" then stop and think hard about your business.

Something is going wrong because it's destroying rather than creating value and it's consuming you in the process.

Corrective action - calculate how much you should be earning as an employee and the shareholder. That's now the minimum you should be working towards. Calculate what that level of income means in terms of sales, customers and leads and set short term targets to get you to that level.

6 - Failing to push for continuous improvement.

Do you and your team of employees strive for finding faster, cheaper, better, more effective ways of doing what you do?

Do you do it systematically?

If you don't, any advantages that you have over competitors is likely to disappear and any disadvantages will grow bigger.

Corrective action - systemise thinking about improvements. Get your team together regularly and target a particular area.

7 - Not following your passion.

A great business is one that you care passionately about and you care passionately about what your business does for your customers and clients.

A great business has innovative products that offer real value for money while making a major difference to the people who buy your products and services.

But how can you have a great business if you've lost touch with that fire that you had when you first started? If you've lost that passion to improve the lives of your customers in ways that no one else can? How can you have products services that genuinely excite them?

Running a small business is hard work and the pressures can grind you down. By losing your clear vision of the future, by focusing on the short term problems it's so easy for you to lose your passion for what made your business such a great idea at the beginning.

Corrective action - look carefully at what your business does for customers. How do your customers feel when things go really well? How do they benefit if you deliver a service that surpasses their expectations? How do they feel when things go badly? What happens to them if the business lets them down?

8 - Not putting your great ideas into action.

Perhaps your mind is still whirling with ideas for innovative new products and services. If so that's fantastic but are you making any progress?

Do those ideas become concepts that you can investigate and if they pass the tests, do they ultimately become products and services that can be successfully marketed and sold?

Have you experienced that dreadful feeling when a competitor launches a great product that you thought of but didn't do anything about? You knew it was good but you never got around to doing anything about it. Now they've stolen a march on you.

Corrective action - keep a log of your ideas and the impact it could have on your business. Answer these questions - why should you go ahead? Why shouldn't you go ahead? Decide if you will take action now. Review the log regularly to see if the balance of act/not act has changed.

9 - Suffering from tunnel vision.

It's very easy to focus so hard on your own trade - how you and your competitors act - that's it's almost as if there is a rule book. "This is what you do" replaces "What would happen if we....."

Success comes from being different from your competitors but that can be hard when you are all playing to the same rule book. But in most trades there are NO rules.

Do you want to be a rule taker, a rule breaker or a rule maker?

Corrective action - start looking at the way other businesses treat you as the customer? Is there anything you could apply to your business?

10 - Failing to make your business work well without you.

What would happen to your business if you went away for a 90 day around the world cruise?

Would it thrive? Would it survive? Or would it be in serious trouble when you returned?

As the owner (and probably the founder) you will always be an important part of your business as you've set its direction, its values and made all the big decisions along the way.

BUT (and it's a big but) your business shouldn't be so dependent on you that it can't survive without you for a relatively short time.

None of us know what may happen. Two years ago I had a medical problem that meant that I could do little work for nearly 4 months. Fortunately everything is fixed now but it really hammered home the point of just how vulnerable I was.

Hopefully an unexpected break from work won't happen to you. But even if it did, if your business has been designed and made to work without you it won't affect your income and profits and it won't affect your family.

And if your business becomes so robust that it can survive an extended absence there's no reason to feel guilty about those two rounds of golf you'd like to play per week or the extended trips to your villa in Spain. You've designed your business to work without you and it's time to reap the rewards.

A second reason for making your business independent rather than dependent on you is that it makes a huge difference if you ever decide to sell it.

Just think about it. Would you want to buy a business and pay a premium price if all the secrets that made it work like a well oiled machine where in the current owner's head? Even if you could replace him and do just as good a job, do you want to buy a job?

Corrective action - put down a plan to systemise your business. Identify the individual systems and decide which is the priority. Then start reviewing what happens now? What goes right and what goes wrong? How can you make the system better?

Results

How did you do?

Admitting to one or two of the failings isn't too bad especially if you answered "sometimes" rather than "never".

You'll know from your experiences of the other factors that what I've written works so I've given you something to think about which is great. Just stop and consider about how you can change.

More than two - you've got some work to do if you really want to reach the business you want.

Don't be downhearted if you've gone down the list and admitted that you don't do many of these items as well or as often as you would like. This is a great opportunity to boost your business.

Just by searching for and reading this website page, you have already shown that you are concerned about your business and that puts you one step of many small businesses who spend their days thinking about the present but not the future.

Do you want these mistakes to continue or do you want to do something about it?

How much do you think these issues are costing you every year? £10,000? £25,000? Even £100,000?

Whatever it is it's a big number and that's ignoring the personal cost on you and your family.

Now there are three types of people who will have got to the end of test (many will have given up so you are already special):

Those who will do nothing

While you may accept the points I've made, many people do find it difficult to move from thoughts into action.

Just go back through the test and ask yourself "Is this what I really want - no direction, no goals, working too long and hard, a business dependent on me?"

Do you still want to do nothing?

Ask yourself what is holding you back?

Is it lack of time? Are you concerned about the potential cost? Do you have doubts on whether there really is any potential in your business? Are you finding it difficult to motivate yourself?

Why not call me and see if I can reassure you or inspire you to take action? Remember you're in control of the process and no one is going to make you doing anything you don't want to.

Those who want to help themselves.

You accept that there are issues that are holding you back but you'd rather not get a stranger involved.

There is an endless list of self help guides, books, CDs, DVDs, seminars so it can be difficult to choose. We particularly recommend works by Michael Gerber and Peter Thomson.

Commit yourself to buying some books and reading them or buy several audio programmes and listen to them in your car as you drive to and from work.

The statistics for people who buy but don't read improvement books is shockingly high. Don't let it happen to you.

We recommend that you go through the book/audio once to get the big picture and then go back through it again. This time making notes about what you are going to do.

Then review your notes and pick out your ten most important items. You've now got a manageable list and you can start thinking about actions - who, what and when?

But remember you are trying to correct issues that are costing you money. The longer you take before turning words into actions, the more any delay is costing you.

Those who want or need to be helped by someone else.

Perhaps you are not keen on self-study or perhaps you prefer to tap into the expertise and knowledge of someone who has already done the work.

Perhaps you don't have the time to do all the reading. Things need to change and need to change quickly.

You've come to the right place because a business coaching relationship is ideal for you. You recognise that you have a need for some guidance, you want make sure that you have the business and the life you deserve and you want to do something about it

Call me, Paul Simister on 0121 554 4057 to find out more or email me at paul@plancs and I'll call you back as soon as I can.

If you'd like to understand more about our business coaching approach just follow the business coaching link.

Or would you like to try our other tests first. Just following the links on marketing, sales, finance and employees.

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