The Top Ten Ways To Avoid Failing In Your
Business
Author: Nancy Powers

1. Stop hiring yourself.

First stop hiring yourself by continually working "in" your
business. Don't be an employee of your company, reserve the
choice to be the president of your company. Secondly, stop
hiring yourself through your employees. Business owners tend to
hire people like themselves instead of people that have the
strengths they require for that position. You tend to forgive
their weakness in that area because you also have the weakness.
Here is a formula to use in delegating to the right people, when
you don't have to manage, monitor or motivate your employees you
are truly delegating. For example one of my clients had to fire
his manager. His manager was in charge of the computer
operations. He decided to promote someone from within the
company to take his place. He hired a computer consultant to
train the new employee. The problem with this is the person he
was training lacked knowledge about computers. This was a very
expensive way to replace his original manager. He realized he
had hired himself. He also lacks knowledge of computers and had
too much empathy for his new manager. He remembered when he was
younger and wanted to give his new manager a chance to advance.
That empathy was costing him in time, money, productivity and
the computer consultants hefty bills. I suggested he hire
someone with computer experience and stop the suffering. He
agreed and within two week his business was back on track. He
was too close to the situation to see this clearly.

2. Learn from your past

Just like a kid has to fall a couple of times when learning to
ride a bike, so do entrepreneurs fail as they learn how to be
successful. Learn from the past and set up systems and
structures so that whatever occurred can never happen again.
Solve problems for a lifetime not just a quick fix. Don't run
your business like a fireman, run your business like an
architect. Build a sustainable future instead of putting out
daily fires.

3. Set Yourself and Your Company Up For Maximum Productivity.

Give everyone the computers and other tools they need to
process information immediately. Automate the reporting of,
access to, and flow of information so no human help is
required. Develop a culture where any blocks to productivity
are removed by your staff instead of you. Focus everyone on
profits and growth. Grow your people as much as your company is
growing. If you company is growing 50% annually, then your staff
needs to grow at least that much. Hire people based more on
attitude and behavior versus experience. Create a culture of
hiring within based exclusively on performance not tenure. Get
a Web Site. The web is growing in leaps and bounds. The expense
of operating a business today can get in the way of offering
your future customers efficient products and services. Your
future customer's will not want to pay for your overhead. The
web offers you the potential to market your business to
millions of people all over the world. Have a profitability and
financial plan. Also a budget and a measurement process to keep
track of how you are doing monthly. If you don't know where you
stand financially and have no short term and long term financial
goals, then you are just letting fate dictate your success and
we know those odds aren't too good. Control your own destiny!

4. Develop Relationships

The success of your business is in direct relation to the
quality of the relationships in your life. Define the key
people that can help you grow your business and commit to spend
time to develop your relationship with them. Spend one day a
week with your best customers listening, collaborating,
suggesting, understanding. Have a relationship between you and
your customers; not just a selling relationship. What you will
be offering or selling to customers in five years may change in
form or substance to what you're offering now. Learn from your
clients instead of just selling to them. Clients really
appreciate sharing their views and needs with companies will
listen. Let the customer create the questions on a survey
instead of just giving their answers. A coach can help you to
develop a system of learning from their customers and develop
relationships.

5. Maintain a Healthy Balance

Your free time is the largest ingredient in recharging your
batteries to think more clearly and create solutions for a
solid future. Maintain a balance between work, play and family.
This is critical for long term success. We all put in crazy
hours on a short term basis to get a hot project done or the
product out the door, but if you do this on a long term,
regular basis it is a dangerous sign that you are losing
perspective. You need to be able to step away on a regular
basis and get your batteries recharged. Have time for your
family because if they suffer it is almost a sure bet your
business will suffer too. Plan your free time for the next
three months. This is usually the first thing that people
eliminate. After you schedule your free time in your planner,
get out your scissors and cut the time out of your planner to
resist the temptation of erasing, crossing out or whiting out
your scheduled free time.

6. Be A Role Model Of Excellence And Encourage The Same In Your
Employees.

Entrepreneurs want to grow their business. In order for your
business to grow, you must grow personally. Your efforts are
best spent developing you. If you don't give your all or let an
inferior produced product go out the door to a client, you are
sending a message to your employees that you do not respect
your clients or your work. Your employees will adopt that view
as well. Set the example of giving the extra effort, pitching
in when needed, caring about people, be the best in your
particular business, continue your growth curve, and take care
of your employees. Encourage innovation and creation. Give your
employees a stake in the future. Once a month, have a meeting
where the employees make suggestions on how to improve your
product, service, efficiency, or bottom line. Get your
employees involved in the productivity game. One of my clients
decided to play the productivity game with his employees. The
game is; the employees get to share in the profits of the money
saved in one year. Within a week they asked him to relieve the
cleaning company of their duties. They took turns cleaning the
office on their time to lower the operating costs. My client
was thrilled. Give monetary rewards when the ideas produce
increases to the bottom line and positive encouragement for the
process. Create an atmosphere where employees are willing and
able to talk with you. The two best sources of information on
how your business is doing and how to improve it are your
employees and your customers. Pay attention to both.

7. Don't rest on your laurels.

Always be prepared to change. Look for things to do more
efficiently or how to improve your service or product. Identify
and remove as many consequences and risks as possible. Insure
yourself where you are most vulnerable in your business. Handle
all legal issues. Errors in judgment and changing trends can
have a negative impact on your business.

8. Minimize all your risks.

A coach will help you identify all of the events, people,
trends, etc. that may adversely affect your business. Where are
you most vulnerable in your business? Accounts receivable,
employees, suppliers etc. Constantly evaluate your competition
and benchmark yourself against them. The minute you think you
don't need to improve anything is the exact moment you are
blinding yourself and can be easily affected by your
competition's growth.

9. End The Lone Ranger Mentality

A Lone Ranger is the entrepreneur who says things like: "No,
that is OK, I can handle it alone." "I'll do it myself, because
no one can do it as well as I can do it." The Lone Ranger
entrepreneur needs a coach to help teach the skill of both
involving and leaning on others. This skill is important to
learn because the synergy that comes from working together is
what ends up being a key competitive advantage. Without it,
your business will slow down. Plus it's a lot more fun to be
supported with great people, than to have to push or rely only
on yourself.

10. Run your business with integrity.

It takes courage and commitment to live by your inner truth.
There is great honor in living with integrity. It is telling
your truth no matter what the consequences. It's being candid
when it might be dangerous. It's going ahead and doing it or
saying it even if it's uncomfortable. Inner truth communicates
through faint whispers, thoughts, pictures and feelings buried
within you. You can't passively wait for your inner truth;
respectfully send for it. Continually turn inward, quietly,
politely asking the right questions so that the subtle signals
become clearer. Integrity is something only you can define. No
one can say you're out of integrity,. When you're feeling
stressed it's a real indication that you need to restore your
integrity. With integrity in place you are complete free.

Are You A Coaching Candidate?

1. Do you spend your day putting out fires?
2. Do you have any concerns about your business running at
maximum profitability?
3. Do you run your business on the edge?
4. Do the same problems continually resurface?
5. Do you have difficulty finding someone you trust who can
give you an objective viewpoint and bounce ideas off of?
6. Is your business running you ?
7. Do you find that you are unable to make the most of all the
opportunities in your life?
8. Do you experience roller coaster highs and lows in your
business?
9. Do you have a lone ranger lifestyle?
10. Do you allow your goals and purpose to get sidetracked?
11. Do you lack having a clear, measurable action plan to
fulfill your goals?
12. Do you lack structure?
13. Do you lack inner fulfillment?
14. Do you spend most of your day working "in" your business
instead of "on" it?
15. Are you a workaholic?
16. Are you experiencing a lack of balance in your life and
business?
17. Are you committed to growing yourself and your company?
18. Are you coachable? (Are you willing to hear and act on
another's person's viewpoint?)
19. Do you lack a clear financial plan for your future?
20. Are you willing to be truthful and restore your integrity?

* If you answered yes to more than three of these questions you
can benefit from a coach.

Questions A Coach May Ask You:

* What five opportunities are you leaving on the table?
* How might you sabotage our professional relationship?
* How have you been motivated in the past to reach difficult
goals or make difficult decisions? How can we best utilize that
motivation now?
* How would you do this differently if you were willing to let
it be easy?
* What would happen if you showed up ten times more bolder this
week in every aspect of your life?
* What are the 10 things you are tolerating or putting up with
that are preventing you from performing at your best?


About The Author: Nancy M. Powers is a professional success
coach, writer, and captivating keynote speaker who leads
seminars on personal development and communications. She
specializes in coaching CEO's, Entrepreneurs and small business
owners to achieve tangible results. Nancy provides the tools,
structure, accountability and support you'll need every step of
the way towards your success. Drawing on her experience and
dedication to research, she responds with training that
produces solid, quantifiable, bottom-line results. Some of her
firm's clients include, Allstate, New York Life, IDS American
Express, Prudential Real Estate, Prudential Securities, Paine
Webber, etc. Discover for yourself how you can have a coach
with a money back guarantee (305) 653-8833.
http://www.NancyPowers.com - Or you can E-mail her at:
Icoachyou@gmail.com