9 Ways to Kill Your Business Before it’s Even Started
As a business coach, I’ve taken a keen interest in what can kill a business in its early states. A lot of my clients come to me after they’ve already been self sabotaging and struggling in their brand new business. This list is the 9 more common ways I’ve seen people blow up their company before it has a chance to gain any traction.
1. Fail to plan for success.
What happens when your have more clients than you can handle? This is where your systems start to break. If you can’t keep up with demand, you’ll accidentally alienate a customer base that is waiting with cash in hand.
2. Hire for the price tag rather than the expertise.
If you’re just starting your business, you need to find the balance between a cheap hire and an expert hire. The classic example is the company that pays 5 designers $100 for logos that they don’t like before finally paying $500 for one that they do.Hiring and managing contractors and employees is a skill, and it can take some time to find that balance. Just keep in mind that the lowest price is rarely the best choice when your business depends on your ability to establish yourself in your market.
3. Don’t communicate with your team.
Not setting measurable goals, ignoring systems your team has built, and hiring new team members without consulting your existing team are common issues.If you’ve got a team in place, use them. You should be hiring experts that you trust. I’ve seen so many people complain about not being able to get good help, but often the issue is that they aren’t communicating with their team. Your team needs to know what you’re planning in order to help you get there. If you’re making waves, make sure you’re all catching that wave together so you don’t get wiped out in the process.
4. Use images you found in a Google search on your website without getting the rights to do so.
This may seem out of place on this list, but it’s actually fairly common for new business owners to try and steal images from all over the internet. If you use an image without the right to do so, expect to pay several thousand dollars in court fees.
5. Expect to know everything.
Even if you’ve run a successful business before, you will ALWAYS run in to new problems in a business. Approach things with the intention of learning rather than expecting that you know the answer. It helps you keep your mindset flexible enough to stay ahead of rapidly changing markets.
6. Let fear dictate your investments.
You should be investing in the things you WANT to do instead of investing in preventing the things you don’t want from happening. Someone will say that this is part of the law of attraction. It isn’t. The reason to focus on investing in things you want is so that you can do more of them.This doesn’t mean operating a business without any protection in place either. If you want your business to be secure, invest in hiring experts to review your contracts or check your cyber security.When you focus on investing so your competition doesn’t take your market share, you just end up running in circles and trying to beat your competition at their own game. You started your business. Run in based on your own goals.
7. Ignore your mindset in favor of hustling.
This is the one I wish I’d known before starting my own business. As a business owner, your vision for your company is what defines its existence. Until you’re well established, your company doesn’t exist without you.That means that if you go down, your company goes down too.I cannot stress enough how important it is to take care of your brain (and body) while starting a business.If you catch yourself thinking, “I just need to push through this and then I’ll be good,” stop right there and take a long hard look at your mental state. I guarantee if you don’t you’ll be pushing through to the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing… until you hate yourself and your business.
8. Make your business about yourself.
You ever listen to someone and just hear, “me, me, me, me, me?” That’s what every sales call and investor pitch will sound like when you’ve made your business all about yourself.People want to know how you can help them. Once you switch your brain from, “How do I make this work for me?” to, “How do I make this work for my customer?” you’ll notice it gets infinitely easier to sell.
9. Forget to set and keep boundaries.
Although making sales is about helping the customer or client, you need to figure out where your boundaries are before entering into any business relationship.Without firm boundaries, you’ll always end up with that client who you have to respond to at 3am. And that client who keeps pushing to see if he can get you to do more. And that other client who keeps rescheduling calls 5 minutes before they’re supposed to happen. And that client over there who thinks it’s ok to pay you 2 weeks late because you let her do it before.Set your boundaries, and put them in your contract. A firm contract is the easiest way to stop the nonsense before it starts.
