Are You Sabotaging Your Small Business? Don't Increase Your Small Business's Chances of Failure By Susan Ward

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Are You Sabotaging Your Small Business?

Don't Increase Your Small Business's Chances of Failure

By Susan Ward

I talk to and hear from a fair number of small business owners who aren't interested in growing their businesses. They don’t want to get into exporting, open new locations, or even increase their customer base much. They feel they have all the work they can handle without having to expand.

In other words, they just want things to go on as they are.

Sound like you?

Well that’s fine.

Except that being in business is very much like swimming in the sea; you can only float so long before you’re going to sink and drown.

If you want things to continue as they are, paradoxically you need to keep moving.

Have a look at the following list of areas that you can’t afford to neglect when you’re running a small business. Are you sabotaging your small business by not doing any of these?

1) Not looking after your health.

If you are the mainstay of your business ( the CEO, a sole proprietor, the head honcho), this is like playing Russian roulette with bullets in every chamber. I recently spent time visiting the cardiac unit at a local hospital and 75% of the patients there waiting for heart surgery were business men under age 60.

Imagine trying to run your business from a hospital bed. And worse, what if you can’t because you’re totally incapacitated?

No matter how busy you are, you need to be proactive and look after your health. If that means lifestyle changes, such as following a healthier diet or exercising more, so be it.

2) Not hiring help when you should be.

Small business people are doers; they are capable, active people who often are more comfortable doing things themselves than assigning other people to do them.

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Unfortunately, that’s a personality trait that can easily get of hand.

If you find yourself regularly working more than the standard 35 to 40 hour week, regularly working through lunch, or generally just feeling run off your feet, you need help.

Whether that help consists of hiring an employee or a contractor, outsourcing particular tasks you don’t need to be doing, or delegating some of your responsibilities to others, it’s important to get your work-life balance balanced again.

3) Not doing the planning that needs to be done.

It’s common to speak of having a job as a daily grind but the typical day in a small business is actually more like a day spent spotting and putting out little fires.

If you’re the kind of business owner who works in your business, typically you have plans for what you’re going to do any particular day and then you go in and spend the day doing other things – which means that whatever organized planning you mean to do keeps dropping to the bottom of the to-do list.

But your business needs leadership, goals, action plans and all the direction and impetus that regular thoughtful business planning provides.

You have to make this a priority and take the time to do it. This may mean having someone else do or oversee your small business’s daily operations, permanently or at least on a weekly basis.

One great idea is to start every day with some business planning.

And many small businesses have found it incredibly useful to bring in more brains bycreating an advisory board.

4) Not trying to innovate.

A lot of small business owners seem to have the idea that innovation is something that only big businesses with established R&D departments and/or universities can do.

But innovation doesn’t have to be a complicated or costly process. All it means to innovate is to look for the new - new ways to do things or new products or services.

And it’s actually a necessity for all businesses, not a frill. If you don’t try to innovate, your business won’t stand still; it will fall behind others who are looking for and implementing those new products and processes.

5) Not investing to keep your business current.

Sometimes our innate desire to keep things the same results in us overlooking things that need to be replaced or updated. From the shabby armchair in your reception area through old software, there are always things that need updating if our business is going to hold its place in customers’ affections (and buying habits).

And sometimes these things require a significant investment. For instance, a coffee shop may need a new roaster or a furniture company may need a new truck. Or perhaps it’s time for a small business to move from using spreadsheets to using a real accounting system.

You need to regularly assess the state of your small business’s assets and make sure that the things that need to be updated or replaced are.

Your Small Business Needs Your Help to Survive

The idea that an established business will just run itself is a fiction; if you want your small business to continue to thrive, there are things you have to do to ensure that it does. Even a mature plant needs to be watered.