What to do & What Not to Do in a Business.
Not all of us come with the experience of running a business inherited from our ancestors. Most, or at least some of us have to experience matters first-hand, fall, stand up, fall again and stand up yet again to make a business successful. Sometimes our friends who are more experience than us will sit with us and explain we should do this and that to make our business better. However, there are very few who would give you general advice on what you should not do as an entrepreneur. So, here I have put together a few important don’t’s for running a small business. This has been collected from my discussions with friends who have been fortunate enough to make the mistakes that have yielded some valuable lessons learned; lessons that have truly paid off.
Remember Your Goal
Always remember why you started down this road in the first place. Whether it was to follow a passion or to have more control over your time to devote to family. As we climb up the ladder, it is easy to be carried away and forget what it was you wanted from your own business. You might, for example, be driven by quality-of-life factors, especially when it comes to other passions, like singing. I am not suggesting that you do not sacrifice on your passions temporarily, but it is important to remember that you started the business so you could give more time to your passion, so you don’t end up permanently shelving the very thing you wanted most.
Think Before Getting Into Partnerships
Some partnerships are just not meant to be, but you realise this only after you part ways. Then you realise that you should never have had a professional partnership in the first place. Small business owners mostly start a partnership with their friends or acquaintances, without giving it much thought. Just because someone is your best friend, long-time coworker and / or significant other hardly qualifies them as the perfect candidate for maintaining a business. I say “maintaining” because it’s far easier to get excited about the prospect of starting a company than being able to handle the day-to-day reality of running it efficiently.
Typically, a good partner is someone whose skills and approach are not similar, but different from yours. The first ensures that you cover a lot more ground without additional headcount. The second, though conflicting, forces both of you to defend your business instincts and weed out lesser ideas before you waste resources.
Delegate Your Work
As discussed in my post Grow Your Business for Free, figure out what you do that turns dollars. Then delegate the rest. You cannot handle everything yourself. Even if you can, why bother? The time you save after delegating the useless work, you can spend on earning more. After all, an hour of cleaning the office can never earn you as much as an hour of responding to email. And there are only 24 hours in a day! Because most small business owners start the company with amount that is barely enough to cover the costs of incorporation, they naturally develop an addiction to doing everything themselves. Some tasks take up valuable time and energy that can instead be directed at helping the business grow. Contact HyperEffects to chart out a tailor-made business marketing strategy for your company and see your business show up on television ads, press releases and on major channel partners.
Delegating tasks give you more time to focus on doing better work as well as devote time to business development. Don’t try to be your own bookkeeper.
Don’t Give Up
A business is not a goal. It is what you make out of your dreams and for your dreams. Enjoy the process! Unless all you want is to cash out, and you’ve got some built-in exit strategy, you want a long-term entrepreneurial career. There will be good days and there will be many bad days. Just don’t give up. Don’t let what others think about your business affect you. Its literally none of their business anyway!
Don’t Ever Stop Evolving
The day you stop evolving, you start stagnating. Your strategy, your marketing plan, your target market, nothing is set in stone. The world is changing rapidly each day. Your industry will likely experience a shift, whether slight or monumental, at some point. Contact us for our free one-hour consultation on latest ideas to make your business grow in today’s world.The best way to remain relevant is keeping your eyes open for changing tides, your mind open to new ideas and staying flexible.
Lastly, don’t be too afraid of making your own mistakes!
