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7 Stupid Things Companies Do To Sabotage Their Success

Written by: Greg Gaskill

Article Overview: Many companies don’t write a business plan and if they do write it, it’s flimsy and never revisited; this is just one of the ways to sabotage your business. Here are some great tips to help your business be a success.

7 Stupid Things Companies Do To Sabotage Their Success

Although many businesses can survive mistakes, many do not. Sometimes an owner or manager makes several critical errors and dive bombs the bottom of the barrel. Here are 7 mistakes that you should avoid to ensure success.

1. No Business Plan

Many companies avoid business plans, and the ones that do write them often create weak plans, or gloss over important goal settings stages.

Write a business plan that is strong and has goals you can achieve. Then make sure you check back with your plan often to rewrite or extend it.

2. Planning for Growth

It is one thing to finance your company, but another to finance its future. If you fail to plan for growth you will find yourself short of cash, space, materials or other critical aspects of your business.

It takes time to get your company solidly on its feet, and even more to expand. Plan that expansion carefully, but also plan for it. Remember this military maxim: On time is late, and early is on time!

3. New Opportunities

Taking on new business prospects takes time and planning. Remember the race between the tortoise and the hare--slow and steady won the race, and often does in business. You can stick to your business plan but still allow for new directions by implementing a process for them.

The key is consistency: don’t jump on something new just because it looks like the next big trend--it could be a flop and destroy your company.

4. Getting Assistance

There is more help available for businesses and their principals than ever before. Look to Linkedin groups, SCORE, SBA, and other resources for small business assistance. Every city has entrepreneur groups and organizations.

Networking for support is a critical component of business success, for contacts, information, and trend-studying.

5. Price Shopping

Too many business owners price shop everything, including people. They are more intent on what they can save on employees than what that employee will do--or not do--for them.

Take the time to find people who share your passion and your goal, especially if you are looking for key personnel. Also, put in the work to check out that person’s qualities and background. It’s one thing to claim a skill on a resume and yet another to prove it with recorded achievements.

6. Continuing Education

Many people think that just because they have started a business that they will either be the ones setting trends or that the people they hire will take care of that. Nothing could be further from the truth in both cases--you must be able to spot emerging trends and jump ahead of them, and rely on yourself.

You can educate yourself by studying and challenging your company goals, promising social and technological movements, and taking continuing education courses where necessary to stay abreast of new legislation in the business world. Stay sharp and stay in business.

7. The “Overnight Success” Fallacy

It is rare that a company or business will be an overnight sensation. It’s much like publishing--a new author has to work sometimes for years before getting published. Expecting anything else is a recipe for failure.

So it is with business. Plan on putting in lots of time, hard work, and constant learning to stay on top and be successful.

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Article Tags: bottom of the barrel, business plans, business prospects, cash space, critical aspects, critical errors, endif, fareast, goal settings, gte, maxim, mso, new opportunities, orphan, paper source, space materials, span style, style definitions, style font, times new roman



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