Small Business Failing; What You Should Know

The Most Common Failure of most small business owners is their failure to put things in writing.  Typically, these are entrepreneurs with no partners who have a vision but never take the time to describe their vision on paper. Is your small business failing? If so, take this small business advice to heart.

Now you might say, WHY?  They’re single owners with no board of directors and report only to themselves.  Exactly!!!!!  And most successful corporations have a Board of Directors who regularly exercise oversight of management activity.  And having an oversight board can be very valuable to the long term success of a company.

An Entrepreneur must “Look in the Mirror” and manage themselves; a very difficult task.  We recommend that a business owner write down their business plan and regularly review the plan against their performance.

Now I’m not talking about a big ole highly enhanced and impressive Business Plan.  I’m talking about some really simple and straight forward stuff.  Like a list of your products, the costs of your products, and your profit by product.  And to complement it, how about a column that shows your competitors pricing; just so you know whether you’re a Price Leader or a Price Follower; or maybe you never thought about that.

And what about a nice little spreadsheet that shows your sales broken down by product, then a column that shows profit by product, and a third column that shows which products contribute the most profit.  Yep, that might be good to know, figure out your “Bread and Butter” products and make sure you’re maintaining your business foundation.

Don’t  go buy a book on Business Plans yet, wait for that.  First, start writing down the following on paper…. Keep it simple:

• What you do,
• How you do it,
• When you do it,
• How often you do it, and
• Why you do it.

Remember these simple but important questions

• Who,
• What,
• Why,
• When,
• Where, and

Heck, just right it on the back of a napkin, but write it down.  You might be surprised at how your brain will start processing the data once you start organizing it.

So this advice isn’t about brilliance.  This advice isn’t about making a good presentation to the bank for your next loan.  This advice is about getting a written program in place to manage the future of your business.  Large or small doesn’t matter…..  Know where you are in your business, Develop a plan based on facts not dreams, and Execute ……   And as you achieve success, take a little time off, head to the beach and then dream….