* This post originally appeared on BlogHer
Symptoms of Customer Acquisition Procrastination Syndrome
By Kriti Vichare
It's an epidemic out there in the entrepreneurial world.
Anyone out there suffering from CAPS (Customer Acquisition Procrastination Syndrome)? Symptoms include the eager urge to work on ANYTHING and EVERYTHING except finding customers to build a new business. Your doctor (or mentor) doesn't need to tell you that building a business is contingent on finding paying customers, yet new entrepreneurs often dive into the more fun, less important tasks first!
Here is a list of symptoms that show that you may be suffering from CAPS. If you have done any of these before or instead of finding customers, you may need intervention:
1. Are you tackling social media completely manually? Or consuming it constantly? That's probably a waste of time. Get a tool like Hootsuite or find a social media assistant.
2. Do you have a constant, burning urge to check your stats: Facebook likes, Twitter followers, email list subscribes and unsubscribes. Warning: none of these metrics imply a paying customer! Saying "thank you" to new followers also doesn't guarantee that they will buy your services - if your product is good, they will buy it even if you don't thank them!
3. Do you find yourself running errands ALL. THE. TIME? Stop! Those errands are detracting you from finding customers! Hire an assistant or a gopher and streamline the unnecessary errands.
4. Are you bogged down by clerical tasks? Unless that is the core competency of your business, they are getting in the way of finding customers.
5. Did you find and rent a fancy office space, before you had clients? Um, why? How do you plan to afford that shiny desk?
6. Are you on a hiring binge - before you have actual work for them to do? It's never a good idea to have idle resources sitting around.
7. Did you throw a red carpet launch party, before actually finding a customer? You may laugh, but it happens!
8. Browsing email newsletters, reading blogs, watching videos, and skimming books are all important, but if this is all you do, and you are claiming to be working on a business, Houston, we have a problem.
9. Did you spend months creating a fancy logo, slick business cards and a fancy feature-and-content-filled website before you were certain about the product you were offering and the customer you were offering it to?
10. Are you letting daily stimuli sway your day instead of spending the day focusing on building actual leads and customers?
11. Are you feverishly attending random networking events in the hopes you will meet the right people that may help spread the word about your business? It this is a strategic move, then it makes sense. Otherwise avoid thee events like the plague!
The only cure for this severe ailment is to find your first paying customer! And after that, rinse and repeat as often as you can, every day.
About the Creator
This comic was created by Kriti Vichare and Shivraj Vichare. It was inspired by the ironies they have seen and have experienced in their small business ventures. You can find their comics on https://www.entrepreneurfail.com/.
Managers: Don’t Treat All Employees the Same Way
By Michel Theriault
We are all familiar with the golden rule that says to treat others as you yourself would like to be treated. However, don’t take this maxim too literally in your role as a manager.
After all, everyone is different. How your employees respond and react to different situations will vary. In many cases, you do have to be fair in the way you treat your employees, but the reality is that each member of your staff is unique and you need to take that into account.
Treating everyone who works for you the same is “off the rack” management. You need to customize your management approach.
A more effective way of managing your staff is to understand each of your employees’ personalities, capabilities, sensitivities, and other factors that might impact how they respond to any given situation and, in particular, how they differ from you.
Here are a few examples of common management activities where you should reconsider treating everyone the same:
Giving Feedback or Praise
Some your staff will perform at a top level regardless of whether you praise them or not. Others require constant pats on the back to keep them motivated.
Similarly, one person may enjoy being invited up to the front of the room and praised in front of their colleagues and peers, while somebody else may be very shy, have no interest in the attention, and in fact will be quite uncomfortable with it.
Providing Guidance or Direction
Some employees need detailed instructions and direction, but others can simply be pointed in a direction and told the desired objective.
For those who need detailed instructions, it might not be because they have little motivation or don’t know what to do. It may simply be a matter of personality, or perhaps they’ve gotten grief from a previous manager for doing things not exactly like he or she wanted. Find out what works for each of your staff members, and use it to get the best results from that individual.
Setting Goals and Objectives
Like the previous item, some employees are very happy having their goals and objectives handed down to them, while others have a need to contribute and help build those goals and objectives directly.
While in some cases your organization’s requirements dictate those goals or objectives, with most employees there are numerous additional requirements that could be set collaboratively.
You can’t always tell why which approach is the right one, since those who want to do it collaboratively may be trying to moderate expectations and those who want goals dictated may want an excuse when they can’t deliver. Whether dictating goals and objectives or working collaboratively, be careful to keep in mind the potential motivation behind your employees’ preferred approach.
Discipline
Some employees take discipline and criticism very well, likely the more confident ones. Others, however, may be more sensitive to being told they did something wrong and be driven by fear of losing their job. They may stop taking risks or making their own decisions because of that fear.
Traditional management techniques usually wrap correction or discipline into a softer approach, telling employees to try to do things differently next time. That will work for many employees, but sometimes the more direct, harsher approach is the only way you will get change from that employee. Again, this is why it’s important to understand your individual employees — so you can apply the right approach.
Development and Training
Some employees are driven to learn and take every opportunity they can for development and training, while others are less enthusiastic. Understanding the reasons for that lack of enthusiasm will go a long way to developing training that works for them.
For instance, off-site training may present logistical or family problems for some employees, so they resist it, or they know a day off from the job means they will work harder or even longer hours to recover from the office day they missed.
Even more important is that different people learn better with different techniques. Some employees may need the hands-on, workshop-type approach while others may prefer attending a lecture or even reading a book on the topic to get the knowledge they need.
While there are certainly benefits and drawbacks to the various techniques for learning and you need to make it work for your requirements, taking into account how each employee learns and trying to adapt the development and training program to those needs will go a long way.
About Michel Theriault
Michel Theriault is an author, speaker, and consultant focusing on topics relevant to Managers and aspiring Managers in businesses of all sizes who want to get results, get attention, and get ahead. He is the author of Write To Influence (from the Quick Guides for Managers series), Win More Business – Write Better Propos
als and Managing Facilities & Real Estate. Write To Influence is currently available as a free download in ebook and audiobook format. As the founder of Success Fuel for Managers, Michel’s work includes training, consulting, seminars, and business-oriented books. Connect with Michel or read his blogs about management and leadership on his site at www.successfuelformanagers.com.
Five Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail
By Anthony Fensom
When it comes to owning and running your own business, fear of failure can be very real, particularly when it could impact your family, income and even home. With this in mind guest writer Anthony Fensom, highlights common causes of failure.
Albert Einstein famously said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” From Richard Branson to Walt Disney, there is a long list of famous entrepreneurs who failed spectacularly before becoming successful.
But with ABS data showing around half of the new businesses established in Australia fail within four years, what are some mistakes to avoid?
1. Wrong business model
Most successful businesspeople have a passion for their business, so if you are in it for a quick buck then perhaps rethink your strategy. Having the right business model will ensure your business can achieve growth from day one – and not just fight it out with other competitors.
Tip: Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur’s “business model canvas” can help identify your value proposition, partners and channels, while a proper business plan is essential for examining the business opportunity and its required resources.
2. Poor cash flow
Poor cash flow management has been blamed for 90 per cent of small business failures, and the current business climate is not making it any easier.
According to Dun and Bradstreet, businesses are waiting nearly eight weeks to be paid by other companies, with the average invoice payment time rising to 55 days during the first quarter of 2013.
Tip: Make sure your payment terms are at the shorter end of the scale, send out invoices as soon as the work is done and follow up late payers immediately.
3. Bad location
For a retail business, position is everything, unless you are planning to operate purely online. A lack of patronage will kill your business, although getting space in a shopping centre can prove costly.
Tip: Consider your target market carefully and, like David Jones’s “multi-channel” approach, obtain as many pathways to reach customers as possible, including a shopfront, user-friendly website and mobile store.
4. Lack of resources
Inadequate finance, equipment and human resources can hurt your business, so ensure your business is sufficiently capitalised from the start. Poor financial controls, including bad credit arrangements, have been blamed for up to a third of business failures.
Tip: Don’t quit the day job until you have enough savings to endure any unexpected revenue shortfalls. Tap ‘friends, family and fools’ for finance, check available government assistance.
5. Inadequate support
It can be challenging operating a small business and even harder if you are a one-person operator. Not everyone is skilled in every area and without proper financial controls, marketing and management experience, it can be tough to succeed.
Tip: Seek advice from a mentor with expertise in your industry. Educate yourself in areas you are weak in and build a network of support from which you can draw upon.
Being an entrepreneur is about taking calculated risks, not avoiding them entirely. “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough,” says award-winning entrepreneur William H. Saito, who says a failure is someone who quits.
Sources
SMH: ability to fail
DNB
Dynamic Business
SMH: Why so many businesses fail
“An Unprogrammed Life,” By William H. Saito, John Wiley & Sons, 2012.
Source: "Five reasons why small businesses fail," Anthony Fensom, RaboDirect: https://media.rabodirect.com.au/business-banking/five-reasons-why-small-businesses-fail/
The Guide to Running a Small Business: 8 Things You’ll Never Want to Forget
By Matt McManus
1. Nothing Happens Overnight
In the early stages of running my small business, I constantly found myself filled with feelings of anxiousness and anticipation. Why had this brand not achieved the level of international success that I had envisioned when I started the company? Why was my brand following not massive? Am I ever going to see this brand reach the heights that I so desperately desire?
I was either having a tough time curbing my problems of time management, or I was making the same mistake that small business owners across the world suffer from on a regular basis. I was expecting to shut my eyes a poor man with a small company at night, and open them a rich man with a large company in the morning. Of course, this is one of those feelings that unless you make a conscious effort to combat, it is only natural to suffer from. Unfortunately, it is one of the most dangerous mistakes to make in the early stages of operating your business. It can be, and often is, utterly demoralizing.
Ask any business owner if their road to profits took longer or shorter than they had originally anticipated. You show me a man or woman who tells you that it took shorter than expected, and I’ll show you a good liar. Running a successful company takes time, and there is simply no way around it. Okay, so maybe once in a while you read of a miraculous business maneuver that results in “overnight success”. There’s actually a word for this kind of success! Luck. Or being in the right place at the right time. For every example you find me of true overnight success, I will find you seventy-five examples of businesses that took five years before they turned a profit.
2. Little Things Make a Big Difference
How often have you been given extra packets of ketchup at a drive-through, and gone home to find yourself surprisingly pleased whilst you dig through your bag of warm goodies? It’s the same French fries and cold soda that you’ve always enjoyed, but those extra two packets have just made this lunch the best one since your mother sent you turkey and gravy in a Tupperware container. Weird, huh? Something so seemingly irrelevant has just made your experience with this restaurant more enjoyable than you ever thought possible.
Now, imagine the same situation, although this time you delve into your fast-food bag only to find the drive-through attendant failed to provide you with the condiment so critical to the meal. You’re now contemplating either driving back to the restaurant or knocking on your neighbor’s door begging for spare ketchup packets. You see, it’s not really the meal itself that makes you happy. Of course, the meal must taste good. But if two meals both taste relatively similar, for a relatively similar price, it’s the little things that make you loyal to one over the other. This idea holds true across all elements of business. In an industry filled with barbers dishing out haircuts, the ones who give you a free comb are the ones who last.
3. The Hardest Things Are the Most Important
Something you quickly learn while running your business, especially if you are running it alone or with very few employees, is that the tasks required to operate effectively are incredibly diverse. In my experience being interviewed by magazines and publications, one of the most common questions I hear is, “Could you describe what you might do on an average day at Bokos?” I do my best to frame a useable answer, but responding to this question is surprisingly difficult. Especially when “everything” is not what they want to hear. Unfortunately, “everything” is about as close to the truth as anything else. Among the wide array of various tasks that need to get done, one thing becomes very clear, very quickly. The hardest things are usually the most important.
4. It Doesn’t Hurt to Try
Coming to terms that there is no roadmap to follow as you run your business is perhaps one of the most important ideas to accept. The trouble is, it is also one of the most difficult. You may find yourself filled
with thoughts like, “I do not know with certainty what will happen if I do this. I better just avoid it altogether.”
Everybody likes a sure bet. Whether you knew it at the time or not, when you took on the role of owning a company, you also took on the role of a pathfinder. There is no set of steps to follow that will ensure a prosperous future. But there is also no harm in deviating from the status quo to make decisions that might seem obscure and unpredictable. I have found that often, these somewhat ridiculous side quests end up being better strategic moves than the safe bets. With a safe bet, you know what you are getting. When you try something new, the end result is unknown. It could be bad, making you say to yourself, “What the hell was I thinking?” Or, quite possibly, it could be the one thing that changes your business forever.
5. Prepare for Sacrifice
A nine to five job can be, and often is, extremely demanding. Every day, millions of people around the world experience a great deal of stress attempting to effectively deal with the demands of working for a large company. They force themselves out of bed well before the sun rears its head, rack their brains to figure out ways to increase profit and decrease spending in a congested cubicle, and sit through stop-and-go traffic on the way home to the tune of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall. For many, this stress filled job is so demanding that a cold, frost-brewed draft is in serious demand by eight o’ clock that night. Owning a company takes those stresses, and that demand, and extends it beyond the eight-hour workday.
An old saying in the entrepreneurial world goes, “When you own your own company, you are always at work.” Working for a company is like watching football every Sunday, owning the company is like being the head coach of the team. If you are not willing to make sacrifices, owning a company might not be the best option for you.
6. It’s not Just About the Money
I once had a man I had never met request to speak with me about owning a company. As we spoke on the phone, he told me that he was a 28-year-old electrician working in Texas. He said that the job that he currently held paid very well, he was bringing home around $60,000 per year. Nothing to laugh at. But he told me that he didn’t want to work for somebody else, he wanted to start his own company. He told me that he hated every minute of his current job. He said it didn’t matter how much money he made, he just wanted the freedom to make his own decisions and set his own hours. He had the spirit and outlook every entrepreneur must have. It’s not about the money. It’s about the drive, the excitement, the experience, and the freedom. It doesn’t matter how many suits a man owns, he can only wear one at a time.
7. Expect the Unexpected
Running a business is tough. There is really no other way to put it. Remember when Dorothy was making her way to the city of Oz, and ran into all sorts of obstacles and uncertain situations along the way?
Well, running a business is much like Dorothy’s incredible journey.Around every turn, there will be obstacles that you must quell before you can continue moving towards the ultimate goal of owning the business of your dreams. These obstacles will come in all shapes and sizes, and some will be very difficult to anticipate. Some, however, are very easily avoidable if you are both proactive and careful in making key business decisions. Obstacles are unavoidable, they are simply a part of business that you cannot escape from. They are, however, manageable. If you are able to effectively plan and anticipate these potential delays, it will transform the massive pothole in the road into a small, manageable divot.
8. Ask Yourself the Tough Questions
What differentiates me from my competitors? How long am I willing to continue working this job if things take longer than expected to get off the ground? How much money will I be happy with? Where do I see this company in three years? These are the kinds of questions that need to be addressed in the early stages of starting your own business. An old saying says that if you fail to plan, you should plan to fail.
Asking questions about your company, what you want out of it, and where it is headed long-term will help you gain perspective on what you are actually getting yourself in to. If you are simply starting a website that sells small bracelets that you make in your free time, it is less important to ask yourself where the company should be in three years. But if you are serious about the business you are hoping to create, asking difficult questions helps you look at your company in a transparent, honest way. One of the first, and often most difficult steps in answering the complicated questions, is constructing a business plan.
About the Author
Matt McManus is the founder of Bokos, a Minneapolis-based footwear company. The brand has been featured in the Star Tribune and Wisconsin State Journal. He is a private pilot and photographer.