I’m on an airplane heading home from a business building workshop on the East Coast. I’ve spent the past few days listening to entrepreneurs, looking at their P & L’s and learning about their teams.
I wanted to take a minute today and talk about the most common reasons I believe entrepreneurs fail. Far too many entrepreneurs are getting their butts kicked. If you’re one of them, my hope is that this will help you get into the win column.
Low Sales
You have a mindset problem. You don’t believe you’re worth more, so you try to be competitive instead of profitable. You don’t practice the sales process and when it’s time to perform you get all puckered up and blow it.
Sales is oxygen for your business. If you don’t have enough profitable sales you will suffocate and die.
Strongpreneur Action
Find oxygen now. Raise your prices 20% today. Call past clients and level up your experience so that nobody bails on you for your competitors. Get some sales training for yourself and your people. Remember to track your sales too. It’s important to keep score so you know where you’re at at all times.
Strong Resources
Get your mind right with podcasts like these:
- The Learning Leader Show
- The Scott Alan Turner Show
- The Profit First Podcast
- The Art of Breaking Out
- The School of Greatness
Keep Score with BASE CRM
Get sales training at Sandler or if you’re a Contractor look into The Contractor Sales Academy Full Disclosure: I co-own that one
No Marketing Plan
You think marketing is a thing you do when business slows down. You don’t understand that everything you do & don’t do tells a story. You don’t keep in touch with past clients. You refuse to position yourself as an expert by creating relevant content on a consistent basis.
Marketing is a marathon that must be run in order to build a brand.
Strongpreneur Action
Figure out where your money comes from. Who hires you? Where did they find you? Identify your ideal client and then clone them. Redesign your website. Chances are it is weak. Don’t be cheap and do it right. Build your email list and then connect with them.
Strong Resources
Need a website? Jackson Price does my work.
Email Marketing? Aweber & The NaK
Read Jim’s Marketing Blog
You Won’t Get Out of the Way
You’re a Helicopter Boss, always hovering around your people. You won’t treat them like grown ups and set high expectations. Because their expectations are low they don’t grow and you don’t pay them enough, so they leave.
Get out of the way. There are plenty of people who can do things better than you.
Strongpreneur Action
List the top 3-4 things you do in the business that make you a buttload of money and make you happy. Divy out the remaining things that need to get done to your team. Ask them to create a system for what needs to be done and run it by you when they’re ready. Determine what you’ll measure their performance by and make it clear to them. Let them do it.
Teach them to think and they will begin to think like owners.
Strong Resources
Basecamp. It’s a project management tool to help you unload the stuff you shouldn’t be doing and get more done.
You Won’t Do
You talk too much about what you need to do, but fail to take action. You read business books and blogs and watch videos. You sit in on webinars and pay for coaching programs. Yet, year after year you eek along unhappy and wondering why it’s so hard to grow your business.
Get shit done.
Strongpreneur Action
Write down what you need to do then do it consistently. Find a mentor, coach or accountability partner who won’t coddle you.
Strong Resources
Nothing fancy here as a resource, just you getting real with your lack of results and making a commitment to change your habits.
Don’t be one of the countless entrepreneurs who fail. Step your game up.
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