Top ten mistakes small business owners make

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I’ve been a business owner, a mid-sized business CEO, and now I’m a business coach. I’ve had thirty-five years experience in my own businesses and with those of clients. I have recognized patterns regarding the top mistakes business owners and CEO’s make. It actually inspired me to write a book a year or so ago.

Here is my top 10 list in no particular order of frequency.

1. Failure to plan. Of the businesses I’ve seen over the past 35 years that are experiencing problems , the vast majority don’t have a documented plan. If you don’t have a plan, and documented goals what is the baseline for making decisions? The answer is, of course, there isn’t any and they spend time and money chasing diversions that look good at the time. Create a vision, communicate it, and base decisions on whether it takes you closer or further from where you want to end up.
2. Lack of financial skills. I don’t mean the ability to read an earnings statement or a balance sheet, but the skills to analyze the numbers and understand what the trends are. It’s amazing to me how little top managers understand about what their numbers are telling them. Numbers are nothing more than a scorecard, you need to look at trends and averages to understand performance. If you look at the score of a baseball game what does it tell you? Your team won or lost. The real data is in the box scores and statistics over the season.
3. Lack of execution, another word for procrastination. If it’s important get it done, make a decision, do the hard ones first. Someone once told me “bad news doesn’t get better with age”.
4. Lack of accountability for themselves and employees. I call this the “they” factor. “They” don’t care, don’t get it. Don’t produce whatever. Top management too often fails to realize that they are responsible for “they”.
5. Failure to deal decisively with the obvious. I am still amazed how long some top managers will continue to do the same things with the same results and not recognize that they need to do something different. Humans tend to ignore the unpleasant. Unfortunately it doesn’t change the facts. As Einstein said, the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.
6. Lack of data. Many companies use the P & L as their only data to manage their company. They don’t have a dashboard of key metrics to analyze trends and identify root causes of problems as well as opportunities. When you see it on the P & L it’s too late, it’s already happened.
7. No clear USP. A business owner or CEO should be able to clearly articulate the answer to one simple question, “With all the goods and services available to my customer, why should they buy from me”?
8. Poor marketing and branding. Many don’t understand clearly the roles of marketing and sales. Marketing is education. Helping your customer understand why your product or service is the best value for them. Sales is facilitation, helping them purchase your product or service quickly painlessly and efficiently.
9. Insufficient capital. From startups to existing businesses this is nearly always a problem. Things always take longer, cost more, and are more difficult than our optimistic projections. Some of this is driven by the fact that if you deliver pessimistic projections you don’t get the funding you need, but inflating results just delays the inevitable. You have to go back to the well and it’s always more expensive the second time.

10. Underestimate the commitment. Many top managers and owners come from large companies with extensive support functions. Moving to a small business is an eye opener. More often than not you are the support staff. Hours, stress, risk all should be clearly understood and agreed upon by all stakeholders.

Running an organization as an owner or CEO is something that few of us ever get to do, it can be exhilarating, it can also be very stressful and risky. The key is knowing and admitting what you don’t know and getting help from trusted experts before you need it.

Effective change management is proactive

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Change is a constant. It's always been with us, it always will be, and it's never easy. That's something that doesn't change. 

But the challenge of dealing with it is greater today because the pace of that change is accelerating. Only fifty years ago, we had decades to adjust to significant changes. Today we often have only a year or two. Science, technology, transportation, and communications are advancing so rapidly that all of life seems to be in constant transition.  

That means that at times you may have to be ready and willing to make major changes to your business and your life. You must be willing to abandon everything you’ve built, if necessary, in order to survive and prosper.

Most people can't do that. People naturally don't like change because it creates uncertainty. They instinctively resist it because they fear the unknown. 

Effective change management is learning to anticipate the need and deal with it on our own terms. We must anticipate change so we're not surprised by it. And we must anticipate where their market or industry  is headed so we can get out in front of it.  

Wayne Gretzky, one of the greatest hockey players of all time, captured the essence of this principle when he said, "A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be."

Prospects frequently ask me "What if we try something different and it doesn't work I respond the same way each time, "Do you think sticking with the status quo is a viable option? How’s that working for you?”

Obviously it isn’t or I wouldn’t be there.

We change only when the pain to change is less than the pain to remain as we are.

Nothing wrong with that. But too often we don't recognize how much pain we're in until it's too late.

Many of today's business owners and managers are in denial. They are refusing to face the seriousness of the changes that are occurring in the workplace from such things as –

·     Global competition.

·     Advances in technology.

·     Automation.

·     Increased governmental intervention.

·     Immigration.

·     Changing values and motivations of workers (Gen X, Gen Y).

What are you doing as a leader to anticipate change? 

What are you doing to stay current with new market and employment trends?

What are you doing to encourage and help your employees upgrade their skills and knowledge?

If you're like most business executives, I'm afraid your honest answer would have to be, "Not nearly enough."

You are your company's change agent.

That means that you must intentionally develop your company's workforce and processes to stay in front of change. Personally dealing with change is one thing. Helping others deal with it is another.

You can help people more effectively manage change by –

·      Helping them understand the reasons for it by taking time to communicate clearly about the issues and the options. Make sure everyone involved understands the rewards of change and the consequences of not changing.

·      Considering the impact of changes on the people involved and taking steps to minimize adverse effects.

·      Giving people opportunities to share in the positive benefits of change. People want to know WIIFM? (What’s in it for me?)

·      Implementing new policies, procedures, and approaches as organized components to well-conceived plans rather than as knee-jerk reactions to circumstances. 

Biggest problems facing small business in 2010

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A while back I wrote an article on the biggest problems facing small business in general. It generated a lot of interest and is by far my most read article. That tells me that business leaders are not only searching for answers but are also searching for the right questions.

To clarify that point, many business leaders know their organizations aren’t doing as well as they want they just don’t know why.Things such as declining revenue, shrinking profit margins, and losses ofcustomers are obvious, but they are the result of problems not the real issue.This is further confused by a poor economy, is my company doing poorly because the economy is slow, or are the causes internal?

Poor economic times allow weak organizations to fail. That may sound harsh but think about it, dollars are still in circulation, there arejust fewer of them. Consumers still need goods and services, they are just more cautious about buying them. I used the example if there are five auto repair shops in an area, people still need their cars repaired, they just won’t do it as quickly or as often. The top service providers with the loyal following will survive, the marginal ones will not.

The top problems for business in 2010 aren’t new, they are simply being magnified, and they will continue to become more and more critical. We need to accept that “business as usual” will never mean the same thing. Technology is making the world smaller. There are new competitors entering nearly every market every day. The Internet has created an environment where small companies can level the playing field with large corporations by reaching millions of people with their message with little or no cost. Good news as well as bad news on a product or service travels far and fast.

So the biggest problems for business in 2010?

1.    Lack of a clear vision and plan – Most companies don’t have one. Throwing something at the market and hoping it will stick will become tougher and tougher. Find a niche and excel at it.

2.    Lack of execution– When you decide on a strategy execute.

a.    Over 90% of strategies that are developed are never executed.

b.    75% of improvement projects fail.

c.     85% of leaders spend less that 1-hour per month on strategy.

d.    Over 90% of employees don’t know the company’s strategy. (This is a direct result of top management not documenting and communicating it)

e.    Well over 90% of organizations don’t have meaningful performance measurements in place.

3.    Ineffective leadership – Things are moving faster and are more complex, and an effective leader must develop an environment that fosters innovation and open communications to take advantage of all human and capital resources.

4.    Sales and marketing effectiveness - this leads back to planning and leadership. Many companies have not taken the time to decide what their USP is. They try to compete in conflicting areas, such as lowest price and highest service. One takes away dollars and the other adds cost. Part of the planning process should include a very clear answer to one simple question, “with all of the products and services available to my customers why should they buy from me?”

In my book I had a chapter that stated flatly that all businesses have problems.While this may seem obvious my experience has taught me that not all leaders deal with problems in the same way. Many unfortunately try to deal with them by ignoring them, others by treating a symptom, still others by trying to blame someone. A few actually use meaningful data to get to the root cause and fix the issue.

The economy seems to be rebounding in 2010. The questions iswhat have you done as a business leader to position your organization to take advantage of it?

What’s your job satisfaction rating?

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There has been a lot written about employee engagement and job satisfaction. What you never see discussed is the owner or CEO’s level of satisfaction.

It must be assumed that because he or she is on top of the pile everything is fine. Why wouldn’t they be satisfied?

Having sat in that chair myself for many years burnout, stress, loss of enthusiasm, fatigue, are all very real issues facing the top management team.

Facing the same issues everyday with no quick solutions, and fighting the same fires takes a huge toll on anyone. The top people however have little or no outlet to voice their frustration. Can you imagine a CEO or owner telling an employee, “you think you have it bad listen to all of my problems”?  There would probably be a mass exodus.

Running an organization is tough enough when you are charged, enthusiastic, and optimistic. When times are tough the job gets much harder.

The questions is what do you do about it? How do you handle it?

Based on my personal experience and the information I’ve gathered over the years from others in my position, the first step is to acknowledge you have issues. This may sound strange but too many leaders refuse to acknowledge their problems. It’s as if they think if I admit it’s there I need to deal with it, if I ignore it maybe it will go away. It doesn’t go away of course and it adds to the stress level.

The second step after acknowledgement is dealing with the issues effectively. I’m amazed at the commonality of problems I see, as I get involved with various businesses. In many cases the solutions are known, but the decision to execute isn’t made. It’s the devil you know vs. the devil you don’t thought process.

Lastly get help. It’s always easier to get help on your own terms before someone forces you to get it. Too often I’ve seen CEO’s and owners wait until a lender or the board of directors forces help on them and it creates a situation that is difficult for the CEO and the coach. Recognizing you need help is not a sign of failure. It’s a sign of logic and maturity. Today’s businesses and markets are complex, everyone needs help from time to time. Only the wise get it early.

Bottom Line Results come with Risk.

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I had a very interesting conversation this week with a potential client about risk. This person was an entrepreneur in the true sense, in that he had built several businesses successfully, and ultimately failed at one. He went through a personal bankruptcy, started over working in a sales position, made a small fortune and recently quit the lucrative and secure sales job to work full time in another startup that he is currently self funding.

Since we both had the pleasure and experience of laying it all on the line through personal guarantees and risking our entire net worth on startup ventures multiple times we had a common platform from which to access risk.

His comment to me during the discussion was “most people could not live with the level of risk we accepted”.  I thought about that afterward and he’s probably right. Most people are content working for someone else and letting them take the risk.  However most small to mid-sized business owners and CEO’s accept risk as part of the price to play the game. How they deal with that risk however varies greatly.

Personal guarantees on bank loans and lines of credit are a fact of life for the small to mid-sized guy. Often between cash invested in order to satisfy other investors that you have “skin in the game”, and guarantees to lenders to “insure you’re committed”, they have most, if not all, of their net worth on the line.

Thinking back over my 35 years It seems that the successful ones are those that develop an attitude that they cannot fail, and do whatever is necessary to make the business work. Those that fall by the wayside are those that are slow to move and deal with issues, sometimes even the obvious ones. They both often have the same level of stress and risk they just deal with it differently.

The successful ones met issues head on. Even when they didn’t know how to resolve them, they asked for help, tried different things and ultimately figured it out. They seemed to accept the old adage “bad news doesn’t get better with age”.

They seem to have figured out that dealing with stress effectively is a direct path to better bottom line results. 

It seems the unsuccessful ones dealt with stress and risk differently. They often ignore obvious problems and stay busy with the day-to-day things they can control.

They hope these issues will go away on their own. They are reluctant to ask for help because many are afraid that accepting change means they were wrong in what they were doing. As I thought about this further I reflected on experiences I’ve had with clients and can think of numerous specific examples of these two scenarios.

How is your business doing? Are you satisfied with the direction you’re going and the results you’re getting?  Take that question one step further how are you dealing with the stress associated with the risks you’re taking?  Then ask yourself what am I going to do about it?

Effective leadership needed drive change in your business in 2010.

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If you are like the majority of company leaders the short answer is not much until it’s forced to happen.

Just like the famous new years resolutions for weight loss or some other worthwhile goal frequently falls by the wayside the goals of business leaders for their organizations frequently go off track.

March is the last month of the first quarter of 2010. By now you should have a good idea of where your plans and goals are headed foe the year.

There is an old saying that people change only when the pain to change becomes less than the pain of staying the same.

Experience has shown this to be all too true.

We’ve all read that over 50% of business that fail don’t have a business plan. What is probably not as well known are the following facts:

• ·     90% of well crafted and documented strategies fail due to poor execution.
• ·     Over 70% of business improvement initiatives and programs fail due to inability to sustain focus.
• ·     Nearly 90% of leadership teams spend less than 1 hour per month on strategy.
• ·     On average 95% of employees don’t know or don’t understand the company’s strategy and don’t even have access to it.
• ·     92% of organizations don’t measure performance.

 The current recession has forced many companies to make changes. The question is, were those changes proactive or reactive in nature? Change is a constant, and how you plan for it and deal with it is up to you.

My role as a business coach gives me a broad inside look at many types and sizes of organizations. I like to tell people I have two types of clients, the inspired and the desperate. Unfortunate there are too few inspired and far too many desperate.

In my business I am constantly looking at programs and tools available to small and mid-sized business leaders. There is no shortage of information and products to choose from. What must be considered prior to buying a product or service is what is the desired outcome? Clearly sustainability is an issue in the majority of companies regardless of the challenge. The statistics above prove that.

 A seminar on quality, or motivation usually lasts as long as it takes for the participant to get back to the office and get hit with “business as usual”. The only thing that drives true change is spaced repetition of a new concept and accountability.

True change management starts with a clear vision, is supported by a documented plan that aligns people and processes to support that vision, and is sustained by leadership and accountability.

There just isn’t any other way.

Follow the link for a free whitepaper “How to Recession Proof Your Business “

Biggest problems facing small business?

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The short answer is it depends on who you ask. In doing some research for this article I literally found dozens of “biggest problems” depending on what the writer wanted to sell me.

There are surveys that call out numerous external problems ranging from the high cost of health insurance, taxes, government regulations, and the list goes on.

In my current role as a business coach I find business owners and CEO’s frequently list their biggest problem as whatever is hot at the time I’m talking to them.

I decided to go with my own history on this one since over the years I seem to have developed an unfortunate and extensive history of dealing with problems.

I founded a value added logistics company in 1989 that grew rapidly from no sales and eight employees to sales of over $40MM with more than 600 employees in the U.S and Europe. I sold out of that venture after ten years and bought a small HVAC manufacturing company with a small group of investors and ran that for five years.

These companies were in different industries and on different growth paths but the problems I experienced were quite similar.

Currently as a business coach I see the inner workings of many companies in various industries.

So what are the biggest problems facing small to mid-sized business today? My version is as follows:

Cash –It’s hard to get and there is never enough. If you are a fast growth company you can rapidly outgrow your available sources, if you are an underperforming company you can’t get it. The majority of companies don’t manage it well.

Lack of a clear plan– the SBA says that over 50% of businesses that fail don’t have a plan. I can say from my 30 plus years of experience not only is that number conservative, buy most businesses don’t know how to plan. Lack of a plan worsens the cash problem by allowing you to waste cash chasing tempting diversions, and throwing money at problems.

Ineffective leadership – this issue takes many forms. In my experience it is frequently in the form of depth of leadership. The founder of the company is

hands- on and effective but has little or no management depth behind him or her. This eventually causes the company to stop growing and eventually could lead to failure.

Sales / marketing effectiveness- this leads back to planning and leadership. Many companies have not taken the time to decide what their USP is. They try to compete in conflicting areas, such as lowest price and highest service. One takes away dollars and the other adds cost. Part of the planning process should include a very clear answer to one simple question, “with all of the products and service available to my customers why should they buy from me?”

Lack of execution- this may be the biggest of all. Research has shown and my own experience backs up the following facts:

·     Over 90% of strategies that are developed are never executed.

·     75% of improvement projects fail.

·     85% of leaders spend less that 1-hour per month on strategy.

·     Over 90% of employees don’t know the company’s strategy. (This is a direct result of top management not documenting and communicating it)

·     Well over 90% of organizations don’t have meaningful performance measurements in place.

One thing all of these problems have in common is they are all internal and within the control of the management team. Business must look internally for problem solutions and position themselves to survive in an increasingly global and competitive economy.

America is in the midst of a leadership crisis.

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The daily news bombards us with stories about major corporations failing, government spending spinning out of control, and political and corporate leaders marching off to jail.

Interestingly, this leadership vacuum exists only at the higher levels of government and industry. It doesn’t exist in small and mid-size businesses.

I know that’s a fact because the owners, CEOs, and senior executives of these businesses tell me so. For over forty years I’ve worked as a manager, coach, and consultant with hundreds of executives. Not one has ever said to me, “This company is not doing as well as it should because of my lack of leadership skills.”

Who’s to blame for their company’s problems? It’s they. Over and over again I’m told, “They don’t care; they didn’t do it right; they don’t get it.”

I’ve never understood why these executives don’t just fire “they” and hire somebody else. Come to think of it, I bet many of them have tried that, but somehow they keeps sneaking back on the payroll.

Take an objective look at your leadership skills.

Of course, the above paragraphs are meant to be tongue-in-cheek humor. It’s just my way of saying that our natural tendency is to blame others. But as a leader in business, you must objectively assess your own leadership skills.

All companies have problems. In order to solve your company’s problems, you’ll need to understand and change the leadership style that got you into trouble in the first place. Start by looking for areas where you personally can improve. Until you change, not much else will. Before you can lead others effectively, you must first be able to lead yourself.

Over the course of my career, I have known literally hundreds of executives. I can’t think of one of them, myself included, who could not benefit from some level of on-going leadership evaluation, coaching, and development.

Yet many executives, especially owners and CEOs of small businesses, find it hard to acknowledge that they have room for growth. They’re reluctant to ask a coach or someone else for help. And because they’re top dog in their company, they do only what they want to do rather than what they need to do.

Take an honest look inside your organization. How many of these issues are present?

• Excessive meetings with no agenda and no results
• Consensus-driven decision making (CYA for all us older folks)
• Lack of personal accountability
• Poor communication between entities
• Reluctance to terminate poor performers
• Misaligned and uncoordinated efforts (silo effect)
• Personality conflicts and power struggles
• Apathetic and unmotivated employees
• Inconsistent results
• Poor time management
• Reactive rather than proactive effort
• Micro-management
• Declining sales and / or market share
• Lack of teamwork
• Duplication of effort
• High employee turnover
• Substandard quality
• Numerous unresolved issues and postponed decisions

You may not want to acknowledge this, but to some degree all of these issues can be attributed to ineffective leadership.

Lead by example.

Your commitment to excellence, integrity, fairness, and open communication will be visible to people in your company. It will inspire them to rise to the performance level you exhibit.

Notice that I didn’t say “to the performance level you expect.” Expectations are mere words. When people respond to expectations, it’s often out of a sense of duty, a desire to please, or the fear of punishment.

Leadership, on the other hand, entails action. When you act as a leader, people will want to follow you to be where the action is. Your example will motivate them to grow and achieve.

Once you’ve developed your plan and communicated your vision, there will be a short honeymoon period. But soon people will be looking to you for results. Will there be real change, or will it be back to business as usual?

Simply wanting your vision to be realized doesn’t work. You need to take the lead and make it happen. When you walk the talk, people will follow. Develop a vision you believe in. Live it, breath it, take responsibility for it, and generate enthusiasm for it. People will respond.

Lack of a better sales process to blame for most business failures?

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We read about businesses failing every day in the newspaper. In the articles documenting the latest list there are always reasons given for the failure, the economy is usually the number one cause.

I’d like to offer a different and less popular opinion. In most cases I’ve seen the reason your business fails is you!

Sound harsh? My experience as a business coach has proven this to be correct.

A great example of this appeared recently in the Tupelo newspaper. An article appeared with a list of restaurants that failed in 2009. The reasons given by the owners were “poor timing and the economy”. Tupelo being a smaller city my wife and I had visited all three of the establishments named over the course of the year so I was in an excellent position to review the article. All three restaurants had three things in common, high prices, poor service and mediocre food.

One in particular, a sandwich shop, that stands out in my mind had an ordering process that involved standing in line to order, and then moving to another station and standing in line to repeat your order and pay for it. Total wait for an expensive and really poor take out sandwich was over 45 minutes. Now this particular shop was located in a strip mall that was exactly four doors down from a Mexican restaurant that is not only surviving it’s thriving. Apparently the economy issues haven’t moved that far down yet.

The point is it’s easy to assign blame but it the long run it really doesn’t matter who’s to blame, your business has failed and you are left with the consequences.

Small and mid-sized businesses are critical to the national economy. A newsletter from the Small Business Administration dated September 2008 provides the following interesting figures about U. S. small businesses. It says the firms with fewer than 500 employees –

• Represent 99.7% of all firms with employees.
• Employ about half of private sector employees.
• Create between 60% and 80% of all new jobs during the last decade.
• Generate more than half of non-farm gross domestic product.
• Employ 40% of our nation’s scientists, engineers, and computer workers.

As important as these firms are to the overall economy all too often they are launched and operated without the resources needed to succeed.

I tell my clients to “find a need and sell the outcome”. Another way of saying it is find a customer base, determine their wants and needs and supply a cost effective solution. Many businesses start with the opposite strategy, develop a product and look for customers. Regardless of the movie line “if you build it, they won’t necessarily come”.

Most business failures occur for several reasons:

• Lack of a clear plan / vision/ direction.
• Lack of execution by management.
• Insufficient capital, or due to lack of a plan wasting the capital they do have.
• They don’t ask for help until it’s too late.
• They don’t understand their markets, their customers, or their competition.

There are other reasons of course, but strong well-run companies are able to survive downturns, the economic swings weed out the weak and poorly conceived.

Accountability is a function of leadership :

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I recently published a book entitled “Bottom Line Focus”. It’s subtitle is, “18 proven steps to take your company from surviving to thriving”. Wow, who wouldn’t want to do that right? I mean if you’re a business owner or CEO it’s a “no-brainer”. Heck if even half of the stuff in the book is of value it’s still a value.

What’s in it? Is it some type of new age magic formula?

The truth is the “gimmick” of my book is there is no gimmick. The things in the book work, but my 35 plus years of experience has proven that the majority of executives simply will not or cannot do the things that are necessary to succeed.

We are accustomed to having the “fast and easy” marketed to us, whether in the form of a pill, a new diet, or a new business concept.

I used to be amazed at the things I saw going on in companies, now I’ve come to expect it. Executives and managers are, all too frequently, waiting for something to happen to alleviate the necessity of taking action and being accountable for that action.

As I get more “mature”, meaning older, I am able to reflect on things based on experience and historical data. What works and what doesn’t. And what it comes down to is there is no silver bullet. Leaders must lead and be accountable if they expect those they are trying to lead to be accountable.

That brings us to the title, the A word, accountability.

I said in the preface of my book the real crisis in America today is a lack of leadership. Take that one step further and it’s also a lack of accountability. Not just in business but in all phases of life.

Depending on which poll you look at roughly 68% of Americans disapprove of the job congress is doing. Another poll states that 83% of Americans favor term limits for congress. I’d have to say these numbers represent a clear message, 1st we are unhappy with our congressional leaders, and 2nd we don’t want “career politicians”.

The accountability part comes in when we realize that only 35% of the adult population are regular voters and 20% are intermittent voters. If those numbers are correct 45% of us don’t bother at all.

If we really favor term limits we have the power to impose them at any time. We simply vote out any incumbent that is in his or her second term. No constitutional amendment, no legal battle, nothing we just use our power to vote our choice.

But we don’t. We will not accept the accountability for our dissatisfaction, we just complain about it.

The same is true in many of the businesses I am familiar with. The management team in many cases knows what to do, they just don’t do it. There are many reasons why they don’t execute, but the bottom line is they don’t. I can literally site hundreds of specific examples of this over nearly any industry.

Accountability starts and ends with senior management. If they hold themselves and others accountable and set the example it will not happen.

Until we accept the fact that everything in life is a decision, even the failure to make a decision, and we are accountable for our action, or inaction, we will not make significant progress in any aspect of our lives.

“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for injury.”?
John Stuart Mill