Business Owners Must Act

I have known many business owners who repeatedly tell me they want to improve their businesses. They complain of stagnant sales, reducing revenues, and plummeting profits. Yet they do not act to change their business situation.

Today I would like to share 3 behaviors that perpetuate problems to productivity. I offer them for your consideration. I recognize they do not represent all the possibilities that may limit business growth. They may not illustrate the barriers to your business growth. Or maybe they do. They may stimulate thinking that will help you recognize an obstacle not listed here, but which prevents your business improvement. They may miss the mark entirely. I hope they help.

1. Do the Same Things, But Expect Different Results

I know one business owner whose marketing plans consist of 2 major actions: direct mailers and changing his web site. He sends direct mailers by the thousands to potential clients. He subscribed to include a mailer in the packets most of us receive through the mail. They did not generate the sales increase he desired.  He changes the design and programming of his web site every two years. His web site delivers a very small number of clients. For years, neither of these efforts have generated the sales he wants. Yet, he persists in both of these ineffective method of sales for his industry. He does the same thing each month and expects different results.

2. Half-hearted Attempts to New Methods

One small-business owner attended a workshop at the Small Business Development Center. He heard an innovative way to reduce overhead. The six-part approach intrigued him, yet seemed too complicated. He failed to comprehend how all six steps fit together. He selected two of the steps and rejected the other four of this integrated approach. His actions failed to deliver the reduced overhead he desired. Blaming the entire idea, he discontinued the two steps. He never considered what might have happened if he implemented all six steps rather than rejecting four.

3. Always Learning, Never Doing

I belong to a small-business alliance to help one another improve their businesses. Three or four owners who suffer from this obstacle attended the group. Every month they excitedly listened to a new idea. They asked several questions to understand it more clearly. They committed to the other owners in attendance to implement the ideas that month. They consistently reported at the next meeting that they had not done anything they committed to do. Some of them complained that the alliance failed to help them and withdrew. Others continue to attend, listen, and do nothing.

In Conclusion

I hope none of these three potential barriers apply to you. If they do, however, you can change. You can improve. I doubt that every idea you explore will succeed. I know, however, that if you

1. Discard some ideas that already don’t deliver adequately to try new ones proven to work
2. Implement good ideas completely and test, test, test them for dependable delivery
3. Act on good ideas

you can improve your business. The last few posts described programs to help you grow your business. How many of them did you try? Remember, business owners must act to improve.

What experience have had or observed in others with these obstacles? Please comment!