Many businesses and companies, comfortable in their previous and present growth tend to be leery of changing their present methods of doing business, afraid it may upset the balance that they have achieved so far.

Caution is commendable and makes sense when a stalled economy has you concerned that your business may not survive, let alone thrive. But there are several methods that obviously help businesses to expand and by believing the myths surrounding them, you may make one of your biggest mistakes.

Myth No. 1

I don’t need a website with a shopping cart. My products and services sell very well right now, so why would I bother selling them online also? As of last year only 11% of Canadian companies sold online, yet the value of what Canadians bought online more than doubled. Canadians spent 18.9 billion dollars online in 2012 and a lot of that went to companies outside of Canada, due to the unavailability of what they were looking for in their own country. Businesses need to look at what consumers are asking for and provide it, if they wish to continue with growth, otherwise they will be left behind by those who will provide it.

Myth No. 2

My relationships with my team and original supporters are not or no longer important, as long as the job gets done and there is money coming in. While team members (or employees) in some cases are one source of relationship problems, the original relationships that you brought into your business should always be taken care of. These include financial and marketing experts who may have originally helped get your business started and gave you advice that kept you from making mistakes that would have been the downfall of your business. All businesses, even those where the sole proprietor wears all of the hats, have supporting members and those members should be taken into account as your company expands.

Myth No. 3

Details don’t count. Most business owners have no idea from month to month, let alone week to week, how they stand in comparison to previous months. You need to know your numbers and the numbers are in the details. While working with a team can help your business expand faster, if you aren’t keeping track of the little things, that expansion can quickly slow and even start to contract. While no one likes a control freak, the smart business owner does his or her homework and takes care of any outstanding issues before they can cause major problems.

Managing and pinpointing the key areas where you need help – either from the outside or from learning more, are the stepping stones of a long term, financially viable business. Understanding the underlying details and determining what needs to stay and what needs to go will help you avoid the myths above that will keep you from growth. Keep your vision for your business intact by always being aware that there may be something you are missing, new ideas you could apply to your business and changes you could make that will help you avoid major business mistakes.

© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014

image courtesy of resources.rpoassociation.org

In most businesses, small business in particular, setting goals is applauded and usually taken for granted. We mark out our good intentions for the month, year, 5 and 10 year marks and even more.

The problem arises when after setting the goals, our sense of accomplishment seems to end there. Our feelings of security and satisfaction just from having completed the to do list and having the ability to look at our goals on paper doesn’t last for long. After that a sense of tension and worry set in as we look at these goals every day, wondering how we will ever achieve them.

We all fall victim to our goals for different reasons. Besides setting them too high and not giving ourselves an appropriate time frame in which to accomplish them, we also don’t realize that as everything else changes, our goals will need to change also.

Most of our wants, needs and aspirations are combined deep within our goals and really should be labeled as dreams. We spend a lot of time on our dreams, which tend to have no base or foundation upon which we can build them. We do ridiculous things in order to realize them and for those that do, once we’re there, we have a huge feeling of being let down and dissatisfaction and wonder why we wanted these things at all.

The largest hurdle is in setting the right goals and having a definite step by step method to achieve them. We have to be motivated to achieve them, otherwise the time we spend worrying about them takes away from what we really could be accomplishing with our time. Goals need to be extremely specific, realistic as to when they need to be reached and also practical. If we set the bar too low, we won’t have any reason to try hard enough to reach them and will just forget about them but if the bar is too high we’ll feel we aren’t doing enough, aren’t smart enough, don’t work hard enough to get where we want to go.

Every one of these things, as it puts your attention on something else, keeps you from working on other aspects of your business and slows down your progress in everything, leading to most of us giving up on ever reaching those goals we spent so much time writing down and looking at each day. Instead of rewarding ourselves each step of the way as our business grew, we forget about rewards and start to back pedal and redo what we thought what went wrong, since we didn’t reach a specific named goal. Whether through over simplification or letting things get out of control as we realized we would never reach a goal in time, we allowed our goals to control us, instead of the other way around.

We didn’t realize the difference between needs and wants and act accordingly. Knowing the difference between the two can help keep your business from backsliding and instead help you with your progress. Knowing when to set aside something that just isn’t working for your business can be a big decision, one that some business owners never make.

Let go of your plans and see if you can form new habits instead. Habits which aren’t rigidly adhered to but those, when kept in mind instead of a list of goals, will day by day increase how well your business is doing and also increase your ability to run your business proactively, rather than by following a set of instructions; instructions which may have outlived their usefulness. Our fear of uncertainty leads us into making goals that may not be what’s best for ourselves and our businesses. Small business owners have always been known for their unique methods of reaching their goals, their willingness to take on change at the drop of a hat and more than anything, their fearlessness – all qualities that don’t involve setting goals.

© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014

image courtesy of adammichaelbrewer

   With competition fiercer than it has ever been, business owners are finding it more difficult to draw in their customers long enough for them to make a purchase. We all want our customers to keep purchasing from us as loyalty to our brand is what keeps our company growing.

Do you make your customers feel comfortable? Not only in your store if you have one, but also speaking with you on the phone and connecting with you through any online presence that you have. The more they interact with you and your employees, the more they will get to know you and trust you to offer them the best deal and the highest quality.

Though your customers may be attracted to what you are offering, outside opinion quite often has an effect on the purchasing outcome. Rather than making their own decision to buy, there is quite often a little ticker tape running through their minds of what this person or that person will think of their purchase. This leaves you with the double job of ensuring that your customer feels he needs your product and also taking in account how strongly they will let their friends and others influence their final decision.

You also have to take into account the lifestyle of your customers and whether your product or service fits in with the way they live. While many of your customers are now trying to spend less and lead a more simplistic life, a lot of what is being offered for sale doesn’t fit with this image. There are those that stick by their own rules and there are also a lot who follow the crowd and always buy the newest thing. Social status is important to them and they will buy accordingly. Deciding which group you and your customers belong to will help your business succeed.

At the end of the list and perhaps most important, is price. Price comparisons are easy to do by using the internet and unless yours is in line with the majority, your customers will go elsewhere. Making sure your product is easily available and also priced right will motivate your customers to buy from you instead of going to a competitor.

Always make sure that you can prove the value of your product, put it out there in a noticeable way for your customers and follow up. Keep your customers comfortable by not being too pushy and listen to what they have to say. Find out what they are interested in and you will discover their motivations. Go the extra mile and learn about those who purchase from you.

© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014

   Most business owners have goals in place, to-do lists that lead to their ability to reach those goals and yet are not easily able to shift their perspective in order to decide which priorities are most important.

Do they have the priorities in place that have led them to choose the goals that will help them the most?

Besides helping you to become successful at managing your time, the actual process of figuring out just what priorities take precedence over others is helpful in defining where your business goes. Some business tasks are much more worthy of your attention than others and successful business owners have learned that priorities also change with time, often quite quickly.

It’s also important to remember that something that is considered a priority for one person, may be completely unimportant to another. Learning to arrange priorities so your business life meshes with your personal life is your ultimate goal. Knowing what you want will make it easier but if you’ve ever asked someone what they really want out of life, the answers tend to be vague, such as money, happiness, security. While all of these are great priorities, they need to be broken down since they mean different things to different people.

Business priorities will also be different for each of us as our goals are as varied as our businesses. Thinking through what is most important to you and what should come first can remind you of what your original goals were when you began your business and can help point you in a new, more satisfactory direction where the outcome will be more in line with your interests. At the same time, you can decide if you are doing things for a real purpose or if they are habits. Some habits may be necessary to keep your business running successfully. Others may be holding you back from becoming the most successful business owner that you can possibly become. While deciding on priorities, make sure they are your priorities and not those that have been imposed on you by the thinking of others. While caring what others think is or can be nice, when it comes to your business, run it your way.

Deciding what is missing in your priority list is another reason to go over it. Sometimes it is the small things that can make the biggest difference, especially in business. Realizing this can re-ignite your interest if it has been flagging and have you looking at your business in a new way. What is most important is that you decide what you can and can’t live without, how much of your personal time you are willing to continue to give up to run your business (maybe this is the time to bring in virtual help), and also if your present goals are still pertinent to what is going on in the present business climate.

Business priorities that you decide on should always be of benefit to you, your business and your family. If a shift in perspective is necessary, spending time on just what your real priorities are, will benefit all of these.

© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014

image courtesy of seanclark

   A fear based business is usually a result of a “poverty” mindset. You are thinking you don’t have enough of what is needed to run your business successfully. This could be enough money, enough business experience, customers, marketing skills, etc.

Learning how to efficiently put the important things first with the least amount of effort can change your mindset from one of fear to one of being proactive. The “doing” part of the business helps you to actually think more positively while brooding over what you see as a lack of something can lead you to failure.

Put aside impractical ideas and processes. Though they may be useful for another type of business the possibility is that they don’t really don’t fit in with your vision well. If auto pilot doesn’t work for you and you find a more deliberate approach to working in your business feels better, then that is the way to go. Some of us prefer a more hands on, constructive approach to business that allows us to make more personal choices day to day.

If necessary, take the steps that will restructure your business along the lines that work for you and your lifestyle. Having a business that is at total odds with the way you live will just increase your doubts. It will all depend on what you wish to achieve within a certain time frame. Identifying the things that are holding you back (your fears) can help you to attain the level of success in your business that you are looking for.

Assessing each part of your business and what it does for you (or doesn’t) can help you to discard those ideas that aren’t helping you move forward and quite often are the things that are holding you back. Figuring out why you choose to go through the same motions which give you the same non stellar results will help you to avoid them in the future and decide on running your business in a way that is more to your personality and liking.

If you have to, go right back to a bare bones idea of your business and compare it with your idea of the perfect business. What would it take to get there and what steps would you need to take that you haven’t been taking? What have you been doing that you no longer need to do? The diverse paths that business owners take in their quest for their perfect business vary and also the length of time it takes as some business owners don’t really consider themselves to be “in” business until everything is perfectly set up the way they would like it. This is also basing your business on fear as you are thinking that unless you’ve dotted all of your I’s and crossed the T’s, something may go wrong at the last minute.

Have faith in yourself that you’re headed in the direction you need to be headed and keep going. Try combining your business with ongoing education that will cover other aspects of your business as this will give you the self confidence to at least try things you once were afraid of.

All in all, learning to run your business from your heart as well as your head will keep you from falling back on fears that come from outside and have no relevant part of what is really happening.

Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014

image courtesy of mlmbusinessblueprint