What
are some of the obstacles that stop small business owners from
reaching their Biggest Vision for their business? What
puts them in the 50% that fail in the first four years? There
are four roadblocks that come up over and over with my clients.
They are:
Just
like many success blocks, these issues are often fear based. Let’s
look at how you can conquer them one at a time.
I’ve
had several small business clients who felt so happy each time they made a sale
that they took time off and "floated" for a day or two
afterward. Rewarding yourself after a sale is a great idea;
thinking you’ve got it made is not. If you have a Big Vision
for reaching your ideal business and life goals and a roadmap to
get there, it must include clear bottom line profit goals for
the year and for each quarter. Each sale represents just a step
toward this goal. By keeping the big picture in mind, you can
feel satisfied and even more motivated to go out the next day
and take another step toward your goal. Small business owners
who think small tend to skip setting clear sales and profit
goals. Without these goals, you can have a decent sales
volume and barely break even because you haven’t looked carefully at
profit margins and pricing. Now don’t tell me you just don’t
have time for this kind of planning. To Think Big you need
to Plan Big. If you’re feeling uncomfortable
with this step, some inner focus work and self-assessment may be
needed to uncover what’s causing your "planning
phobia" so you can
breakthrough it.
We’re
all skilled at what we do or we wouldn’t start a business, but
marketing is a specific skill set that requires highly creative,
"out of the box" thinking. Marketing is not a
haphazard activity. If you own a business and aren’t getting
significant results from your marketing, a wealth of affordable help is
available. You don’t need to have a big company marketing
budget to implement a profit producing plan. But you do
need to have a budget and a detailed, focused marketing strategy
and plan. Again, please don’t skip this step! Anyone
who tells you that you can market your business without spending
a dime is probably from another planet! Check out the links at
the end of this article for low cost, high return marketing
help.
With
today’s frenetic pace, we all suffer from struggles with time
management. More and more it requires laser-like focus on
priorities to use our time wisely. Time
management is also about outsourcing tasks that are not
profit producing for us, or are in areas where we are weak.
Although we may not be able to do this from Day One, we can plan
it as part of our Big Vision Roadmap. If you who like to
micro-manage and are afraid to give up some control you're
doomed to stay small, overworked or both. There are
dynamic self sustaining systems that you can put in place which
will assure that your outsourced tasks are completed properly
and that your employees are doing their jobs.
This is key. I can’t stress enough how important it is to
schedule time to quiet your mind as well, and to reflect
and plan. This is how you’ll be able to refresh and
renew and when you’ll have access to some of your best ideas.
In addition, visualize daily in detail how you’ll look, feel
and act when you reach your goal. It’s very powerful. See the
links below to download a free Big Vision Tool to assist you.
Finally,
even if you’re a solo entrepreneur, running a small business without
a budget is impossible. Sit down right now and make a simple
plan. In the next 12 months, what are your projected sales? How
will you generate these sales? What percentage of sales will you
spend on marketing, accounting, consultants, payroll etc? If
you’re just starting out and have no current income you’re
going to need to borrow enough money to do all you can to get
your business off the ground. Doing a business plan will help
you figure out how much you’ll need. If you’re already up
and running, look at the past year to help you predict what you’ll
need next year, but remember to think big. Get the small
business help you need. Don’t short change
yourself.
Just
following the suggestions above can result in a remarkable leap
forward for your small business!
