RR#096 - 5 Mistakes That’ll Keep Your Small Business, Small
I’ve had the opportunity to engage with tens of thousands of small businesses throughout my career.
And I've seen countless entrepreneurs with big dreams and even bigger potential. But sometimes,
despite all their efforts, their businesses just don't seem to grow.
Why is that?
Through all these interactions with small businesses, I’ve noticed some patterns in the mistakes entrepreneurs often make that lead their business to stall out or fail.
I’m sharing 5 of the most common ones I’ve observed for you to use as a “do not do,” and your business will be way better off for it.
Not Enough Work: It's simple math.
If you're putting in 20 hours a week and someone else is putting in 60, they're moving 300% faster.
Seems obvious, I know. But a lot of people simply aren’t putting in the volume of work they need to hit the goals they have for the business.
So the inputs simply aren’t enough to get the expected outputs. Simple systems thinking.
You can either increase the amount of work you’re putting in, or adjust your expectations on what to expect to get out.
Working on the Wrong Things: Effort is crucial, but direction is key.
Hard work isn’t enough. Because it won’t matter how fast you’re running if you’re running in the wrong direction.
If you’re investing 60, 70, 80 hours week after week and not seeing results, you simply aren’t working on the right things.
This is where the “just keep going” message is bad advice and burns people out.
You’ve got to take a step back and determine which things are the highest impact, highest leverage. Then focus like hell on that and let all the other fires burn.
Confusing Investments with Expenses: Growth requires investment.
A lot of business owners will tell you they want to grow.
But when you start offering ideas like running paid ads, hiring someone to increase sales, or investing in automation, they’ll say they can’t afford it.
Or they want to wait until the business grows to make the investment.
Growth initiatives should be viewed as investments, not expenses. You are investing $1 to get a return greater than $1.
And they should be viewed as things you do to create growth, not to wait for it.
Not Delivering Good Work: Great work compounds over time.
Getting clients for good service businesses gets easier over time.
Almost no way around it, if you do good work you will get at least some referrals along the way.
So, if it's just as tough to land your 50th client as it was your first, it's time to reassess the what you’re really offering clients
.
And if you are getting referrals, leverage that goodwill and get those great results captured in testimonials and social proof you can use in marketing.
Letting Feelings Dictate Behavior: Entrepreneurship demands consistency.
Entrepreneurship is an emotional rollercoaster, certainly more than any other role I’ve been in (and I did political fundraising in election seasons).
That’s why you can’t let your feelings dictate your behavior.
You can’t create content only when you feel like it. Or prospect only when you feel like it. Or any other key function that drives sales. You’ve got to push on the right things - consistently.
The best part is that when you show up every day, your actions influence your feelings more than your feelings influence your actions.
Each of these points boils down to a mindset shift.
And if you can avoid the above, you're well on your way to breaking out of the small business mold and unlocking the growth you've been dreaming of.
If you want to share more on this, check out 5 Things Keeping Your Small Business Small on:
Ray
P.S. - Wanna take it on the road? Tune in on Repeatable Revenue Podcast here.
