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10 Habits of Highly Unsuccessful Business Owners and Managers

Written by: Lorraine Pirihi

Article Overview: Do you spend every waking minute at work? Do you find it difficult to take time out for you? Are you constantly working in a mess?

10 Habits of Highly Unsuccessful Business Owners and Managers

Do you spend every waking minute at work? Do you find it difficult to take time out for you? Are you constantly working in a mess?

The Small Business Owner

These people tend to be involved in every aspect of their business from being the bookkeeper, marketer, human resources manager, mediator, customer liaison officer and cleaner.

The smaller the business the harder it is for the owner to delegate these functions because they dislike spending any money and, in fairness, the dollars can be much tighter. However, many fail to realize that if they invest their dollars wisely in accessing the right type of goods and services to grow their business and be more effective, they will see positive changes occur over time. They can become more productive and profitable. It takes time to build a good "business mindset" and to be an effective leader.

The Manager

Many of the managers I have coached suffer from similar challenges as the small business owner. The key difference of course is that the business owner is responsible for his business and cannot escape that responsibility. If the business is profitable or non-profitable it will impact on that person personally, particularly financially.

10 Habits of Highly Unsuccessful Business Owners
Check out if you regularly practice these habits:

1. Don’t practice what you preach
Tell other people what to do and don’t do it yourself. Set a poor example.
2. Do not invest any time and money into developing yourself and your people.
Forget ongoing personal and professional development. The less you and they know the more time, money and energy you will waste. A surefire way to have an unmotivated and unproductive team…not to mention the loss of opportunities.
3. Avoid planning at all costs
Continue to be reactive and do things on the spur of the moment. Don’t write a list of things to do each day and definitely do not use a diary to plan out what you will do. This will ensure you have no time and no life.
4. Eat whatever you want to and don’t exercise
Being unfit and overweight will ensure you’ll feel tired and look awful. You’ll also be susceptible to sickness. A great way to ensure you won’t be able to cope with the pressures of your personal and professional life.
5. Spend most of your waking hours at work
Start work early and stay late. This will sap you of energy and creativity. A surefire way to have unsatisfactory personal relationships. Next time you’re in a social situation outside of work you won’t have anything else to talk about except work, work, work. In fact people will avoid you because you’re boring!
6. Avoid looking after your clients/customers
Ignore them unless they contact you. The fact that without them you wouldn’t be in business won’t matter. Do your utmost to not deliver on your promises, avoid following them up or returning their calls. After all you’re a multi-millionaire and it wouldn’t matter to you if there was no one to purchase your goods and services…you can retire whenever you like.
7. Procrastinate at all costs
Avoid making decisions and taking action. This will frustrate your people and they’ll keep their ideas to help you and the business to themselves because they know you won’t take any action. A boss who procrastinates, affects everyone else around himn/her.
8. Be a Know-All
Avoid asking your people for their feedback. Keep them out of the loop. Regular team meetings? The unsuccessful business owner or manager doesn’t see the need to talk with his/her team… it means they take time off and waste valuable company time. No need to listen to what they have to say…what would they know? If meetings are called it’s only when there’s (another) crisis.
Never ask your clients/customers what they think about your products/services and the customer service (or is that disservice?) …you may be pleasantly surprised or horrified to find out the real truth. Better not to know then you don’t have to change.
9. Say ‘yes’ all day
Let everyone interrupt you all day long. Keep your office door open so people can wander in and talk to you. You can guarantee that you won’t get much work done. But that doesn’t matter, does it?

You’ve been doing it for so long now, why do anything differently? You want to be liked by everyone, regardless of the cost to you personally. As long as everyone else gets their work done, who cares if you work late to catch up?
10. Avoid Delegation at all costs
After all, no one is as good as you. Delegating or outsourcing means spending money if you run your own business. It’s better that you waste your time on secretarial tasks and doing the bookkeeping, because what else are you going to do with your time?

The Final Word

If you are a business owner or manager and you can truthfully say that the 10 habits mentioned don’t apply to you because you do the exact opposite …then congratulations, your business/department must be thriving. Keep up the great work…you deserve to succeed.

On the other hand, if you already have these habits firmly in place, then you are guaranteed not to succeed. You will leave work most days feeling stressed and unfulfilled. Is that what you really want? If so, then continue doing the same as you’ve always done. If not, then you must do something different. What are you prepared to do?

If you know where to go or what to do to make the changes, then go ahead and do it. If you’re unsure then call me but you better be serious about moving forward. I’m into making the most of my time and yours.

The choice is yours…continue doing the same things or change. As mentioned many times before, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result”.

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Related Forum Posts
Re: My 3 best business books - 1. Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill 2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey 3. Permission Marketing - Seth Godin Think and Grow Rich seems more powerful each time I read it or dip into it. The 7 Habits not only offers some very effective ways to organize your life (which I have yet to master!), but also some great quotations and thought provoking statements including this by Nazi concentration camp survivor, Viktor Frankl: [i:2naxzsom]Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.[/i:2naxzsom] Seth Godin's Permission Marketing is a good read for anybody seeking to understand how to approach doing business on the Internet in the right way with regard to winning people's trust.
Re: Money Does Not Guarantee Happiness - Thanks for singling this point out, Chris. One book that comes to mind that covers it in an overall approach is "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey. He addresses our inner life and the way it can change our effectiveness home and at work. There are corporations who have taken this model and effectively molded their business around it.
Re: What I'm reading this weekend - Sept 10, 2010 - Glad you liked it David! I only managed to get partway through the list today because my one year old was looking for some playtime but I did read the Zen Habits one - I love reading Zen Habits while relaxing at a coffee shop!
A ton of Great Women - You might want to profile Teresa Cascioli of LakePort Brewery. She has an amazing story! I met her at at the celebratory luncheon for the Profit/Chatelaine Top 100 Women Business Owners. The Top 100 list is also a great resource for inspirational stories of Women Entrepreneurs.
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.


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