Blair eBook Fatal Business Mistakes

8/4/2019 Blair eBook Fatal Business Mistakes

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2011 XCEL Holdings LLC, Blair Singer, SalesPartners Worldwide 2 May 2011 Fatal Mistakes

FatalBusinessMistakes


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Fatal Business Mistakes

Avoid Killing Your Business by Evading or Correcting these Mistakes!

The entrepreneurial dream is a dream that is not limited to any country, place or person. It knows

no geographic, ideological or ethnic boundaries. It is an urge that strikes deep into the hearts

and spirits o men and women alike that have a vision, desire and courage to be in business or

themselves. Why? Probably because o the opportunity to generate seemingly unlimited amounts

o income based upon their own skills, cunning and knowledge. To operate as their own boss and

to not have to operate within the structure o someone elses making. More importantly, it could be

because o a vision, idea or product that they eel can add incredible value to the lives o thousands.

Finally, but not less important, it is the desire or reedom, income and sometimes even ame that

drives many to the world o being in business.

In these times, more people than ever beore have struck out on their own to take on the challengeo business ownership. In a world o uncertain economics and insecure job markets, the best

security a person can have is being accountable to themselves. Every day, more people join the

ranks o small businesses as partners, associates, contractors and sta members.

I you share in this dream, know it is real and the rewards are big- but so is the risk. I your idea or

service bombs, you are let battled and bruised on the roadside watching the world go by. Yet in my

28+ years in business, the mistakes that businesses make are less about the idea and more about

things that are not so obvious, but can be down-right deadly.

In this report, I will do my best to give you the most deadly mistakes that businesses make and how

to prevent them. By the way, these mistakes are equal opportunity business killers its just that

the smaller businesses may not have the deep pockets to recover. I have worked with Fortune 500

companies, sole proprietors, ranchisors, and small and large businesses in over 15 countries and

can tell you that size makes little dierence when it comes to these atal errors.

The good news is that the solution to most o them is the same: Education. Know your enemy,

study its weaknesses and strengths - and head it o at the pass.

The Fatal Business Mistakes all primarily into these 7 categories:

1. Not being able to SELL

2. Inability to BUILD and DRIVE a TEAM

3. Not BEING ABLE TO TEACH others how to lead

4. LACK OF SYSTEMS

5. LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY

6. NO CODE o HONOUR, MISSION or VALUES

7. Allowing THE LITTLE VOICE or sel-chatter in your head to rule the day


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This list will come back to haunt you in those moments when you are acing challenges and

obstacles. Just remember that a problem can only persist i there is something unknown. This list is

designed to take the demons out o the shadows so you know them and can easily slay them.

1. Assuming It Will Sell Itsel

I have had thousands o people tell me about their brilliant idea or a product or service that would

be completely irresistible in the market. Blair, I swear this product will just sell itsel, they claim.

I just need People then eel justied in spending all their time ocused on the product instead

o sales and marketing. Many o these businesses go broke because they hold onto the myth that

the products or services will sell themselves. They believe that once one key person nds out, it

will become a viral success or they tell themselves i they get just 1% o the market, theyll be

swimming in cash. I hate to dash your hopes, but the odds o that happening without you selling

are slim to none. The #1 skill or anyone in business is the ability to actually SELL.

For some people, selling is a dirty word. Its beneath them. Its the realm o used car salespeople or

door-to-door hawkers. The reality is that sales equals income. I selling is distasteul to you Get

over it! Whether you are in business alone or the CEO o a publicly listed company, your job is to sell

your concepts, ideas, and products to a very crowded, jaded and skeptical market. You have to be

able to clearly communicate the benets o doing business with you. You also have to nd a way to

cut through the noise in your industry, and stand out and be heard. Thinking the product or service

will sell itsel without a strong selling eort on your part is an exercise in denial.

2. Not Taking the Time to Learn how to Sell or Thinking Selling is Below You

Many times, newbies into the world o entrepreneurship are reugees rom the corporate world.

A world where they had resources, a chain o command, and authority. Selling was something

either taken or granted or relegated to the sales orce not something you had to do yoursel.

So many edgling entrepreneurs bury themselves in their inbox or in organising their ofce, or

perecting their logos/orms/processes beore they even have any clients. Too oten, its a keep-busy procrastination tactic.

I hear a lot o people say, I want to be a business owner not a salesperson. I can tell you that

the roadside is littered with the lost dreams and hopes o people who thought they were great

business owners, but didnt or couldnt sell. But, seldom will you nd a great salesperson along that

roadside. They always know how to generate income in any economy.

In 28 years o business, I have never stopped learning how to sell better. Never stopped practicing,

drilling, role playing or studying. Neither has my team. One o the main reasons companies hire our


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SalesPartners is because they want a coach to keep them accountable to their sales goals. Selling is

a learned trait. You dont have to be born with it; you just have to learn it.

3. Wrong Reasons or Starting a Business

Whenever I mentor or coach olks with their businesses, I ask them WHY they started their business.

The answers are always interesting. Granted money is a big motivator, but there are plenty o days

in your own business where there is no money and the prospects or income look bleak. What

is your motivation then? Some say they dont want to be a slave working or someone else. Fair

enough. But slavery is not relegated to employer-employee relationships. When you are working

or your business rather than your business working or you, income is scarce and you have no

choice that too is slavery. Or, how about these reasons: My Dad was a business owner; I inherited

it; my riends said it was a good idea; I wanted to have more time or my amily; or I hated my job.

The most successul businesses I have seen have a mission something they want to do in the

market that makes a diference. They want to be able to make a statement about who they are and

what they do: They want to create a legacy. This same drive is also the essence o branding. What

promise will you make to the world and deliver? Overnight delivery? Satisaction guaranteed? For

our SalesPartner ranchise owners around the world, the mission is to Improve the quality o lie

or everyone through transormation o the marketplace. There needs to be a re inside that will

take you past those times when the going gets tough.

4. Leveraging and Overextending Too Soon

Visions o grandeur are great, but trying to leverage your business too soon can be atal. Trying to

launch a ranchise beore you have a successul prototype can get you in serious trouble. There are

several levels o growth to any business. When we work with businesses, it is clear whether they

are: Emerging; in chaos; stable; abundant; or in a power position.

Replication beore stability is like trying to build a house in the middle o an active earthquake!!

Attempting to raise money or a hal-baked, unproven idea is not out o the question i you have

the business experience or team to pull it o, but or the average person that is stretching too

ar, too soon.

I you have a vision o multiple locations, get one stable and cash owing rst. By opening that

second and third location, you have just multiplied any unresolved problems that you had with the

rst one. Overextending yoursel nancially too soon kills countless businesses daily. Overextending

yoursel, your time, and your resources can also take a toll on your amily, your health and the rest

o your lie.


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5. Abdicating Core Responsibilities Too Soon

Boy, wouldnt it be great i you could just sit by the beach sipping Mai Tais while other people do

all the work? Its a great dream, but its also oolish to think you can start a business and not be

involved. There is a huge dierence between delegating, empowering, and abdicating. Many new

business owners who dislike sales want to bring someone on to do it or them immediately. Not a

bad move, but that does not mean that the business owners dont sell too! As a business owner, it

is critical to learn how to sell, market and to even teach others how to sell.

You, the business owner, may not be the best in your organisation at the business unction, but

you still need to have a eel or it, a hand in it. I you are going to give direction to others you

best know what you are talking about. I you are oggy about accounting LEARN the BASICS.

Abdicating accountability to numbers and stats to an accountant, bookkeeper or CFO does notabsolve you rom being nancially literate.

You can also spend a ortune on marketing consultants and companies who will promise you the

moon, but at the end o the day, you know your business better than anyone else. You know your

message the best. Those olks can help you, but not do it or you.

A business must also have an eective method o training its own people. Very ew businesses

know how to teach so they are always looking or good people. There are plenty o good people,

but lots o bad or nonexistent training.

Our SalesPartners provide a very valuable service in the area o sales training and team building.

SalesPartners tailor and then deliver core training or the specic needs o their clients- which is

always signicantly less costly and more eective than continually searching or good people.

6. Thinking You Can Do it on Your Own

A big mistake is thinking you can build an enterprise by yoursel. All businesses need advisors,

mentors and teams to be successul. We are taught in school to do things on our own. Not to

cooperate. No wonder so many ail in business!

Business is a team sport. I dont know about you, but I am not smart enough to do it mysel, nor do

I want to be. In my book the ABCs o Building a Business Team that Wins, there are simple ormulas

to take ordinary people and turn them into awesome teams. One o the limiting thoughts that

prevent team ormation is: When I make more money, I can hire a team. Wrong! With that thought,

that day may never come.

Teams are not always compensated with wages. Teams are not always employees. They are advisors,

partners, joint ventures, ranchisees people who believe in you and your mission. You are not

Superman-or-woman so dont try to be. Odds are, youll ail.


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7. Operating in Isolation

There are some who are legends in their own minds. They think they know the market, know what

it wants, know how to deliver it without being IN it. Theyre building a better mousetrap without

ever having seen a mouse. Sorry. Thats not the way it works. My partner calls them sky pilots.

Those olks who sit holed up behind their computers guring out the market without getting out

there and TALKING to people.

In these days, you have to make live contact with people to understand where they are, what they

need and how you can truly help them. Become part o the market. Know your market better than

anyone else and TALK TO LOTS OF PEOPLE ALL THE TIME. One o my mentors calls it REACH. The size

and success o your business is a unction o the size o your reach. Its not necessarily how many

people you can reach, its who you can reach that makes a dierence. More as, when you touchthem, does it matter? Do they learn rom or act on what you share?

8. Not making the Shit rom Creation to Management

Its one thing to create great ideas. Its another to manage a process o delivering it. Many

entrepreneurs are continually creating because they are good at nding and solving problems.

The problem is that cycle is endless. There are countless opportunities to solve problems; but to

monetise your solutions, you have to also create and manage a process to deliver it.

Take my business or example I teach people how to sell. I created a proven sales training

process, which we then passed on to our SalesPartners so that our training would be accessible

to businesses around the world. We created a process to train our SalesPartners in how to train

business proessionals.

Once a process is created, someone has to enorce it. In our business, thats my partner Kelly. Kelly

continually MANAGES the process and make sure it is executed properly again and again that

people are trained on it the right way so they can generate consistent results. This is a very dierent

skill set than creating the process.

In my business, I know that I am stronger in creation than I am in managing. That is why my partner

and I are such a good t. He loves to manage the processes and make them hum. A creator is

orever changing the process, which is like over-pruning a tree. You will kill it. This also requires the

willingness to accept your strengths and your weaknesses- and let others with the strengths you

lack lead around you.


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9. Accepting that Training is Essential

Do you want explosive growth in your business? In John Maxwells The 21 Irreutable Laws o

Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You, John shares that the Law o Explosive growth

is predicated on teaching others how to lead. Most organisations that get o to a rousing start

sputter because there are no training systems in place. As the business grows, it must nd a way

o replicating and transerring the knowledge gained to the next generation o team members.

Without this training, the original bread winners are trapped doing what they do.

What happens when you land that big account and now you need more bodies to get it done?

Are you going to throw them to the wolves and watch them struggle and ail or develop a training

system that gets them up to speed quickly, dependably and in a way where they eel like they are

positioned to succeed and win? And by the way, training is not show and tell. Training is immersionin the physical, mental and emotional aspects o the job; whether it is sales, accounting, marketing

or customer service. It must be replicable.

You might eel like you dont have time to train someone else, especially at this level o immersion.

You just need the work done. But, to grow your business, you have to make the time. To be a great

leader, you must also be a great teacher. SalesPartners can help you design and acilitate that

training so that your vision and your processes become the core o your company culture.

10. Ignoring the Personal Development Side o Business

Its not personal. Its just business. Riii---iiight. Probably the biggest mistake o all in business is

ignoring the act that business is an emotional contact sport.

What takes most people out o the game is the emotional stress, worry, panic, rustration and

atigue that comes with building a business. I learned many years ago that the toughest sale o all

is selling mysel to mysel. It is mastering the Little Voice in my head that doubts, sabotages and

erodes my condence.

When your mood level is high, you see opportunities in every obstacle. When your mood level is

down, every molehill looks like a mountain and even the smallest problems seem insurmountable.

To produce consistent results in your business, you have to be able to control your thoughts and

eelings. When youre down, how do you get your mood level high again? In the early days o my

business, I wasnt that emotionally strong. I sought approval o others, second-guessed mysel, and

beat mysel up on a regular basis. I hated eeling stressed out all the time, so I sought great teachers

and coaches that I still use to this day to teach me the skills o managing my thoughts, belies and

emotions.

Every personal development course I ever did, automatically increased my selling ability. Why?


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Because the toughest sell o all is between my own ears. Your Little Voice can be your biggest

enemy or greatest ally. But, i you are unconscious about it, it will rule you and sabotage your best

eorts. What most people ail to grasp is the gut wrenching, teeth gnashing, laying-in-bed-retting

roller coaster that comes with having a business. Business IS a personal development workshop

that you can never walk away rom but the better you master yoursel and your team, the more

money you will make.

11. Under Capitalisation and Poor Money Management

I could write a whole book here about insufcient capital, unrealistic orecasting and poor budgeting

habits o the typical start up and growth mode business. The inability to raise capital comes rom

two things: 1) The inability to sell and 2) poor money habits. I you cannot show a command o

these two areas, no one will trust you with the ability to generate prot.

Managing money should be simple: Earn more, spend less. But, many people are either ocused on

sales only and ignore their costs, or do everything to conserve money and strangle their sales and

marketing eorts.

Being a spend-thrit or over-spending will kill your business. Weekly accountability to numbers

and good discipline will allow help manage costs while allowing or growth. It is important to take

risks to generate business, but orecasting with no budget is a disaster. Putting your uture in debt

without a solid plan and nancial controls is like giving your teenager a credit card with no limits.

Your exuberance as a business builder may cloud your better judgment. Remember, when emotion

is high, intelligence runs low. I you have bad money habits personally, they will reect in your

business. Any nancial issues that you have when you have no money, will get worse once money

starts owing in. Sales does NOT cure nancial incompetence.

12. Ignoring Margins and Proft

Many businesses do not need more sales. More sales will actually kill them. This may soundcontradictory to number 11 above, but, the act is that they need more prot margin on what they

are already selling, not more sales. One o our SalesPartners ranchisees had an account looking

or help to help increase sales. We asked to look into some o the clients numbers or a better

understanding o the business. What we ound was that more sales would make him go broke

aster. He was buying product to sell at 85% o the price he was selling it at. Ater a bit o overhead,

every sale was digging his grave deeper!

Every transaction should contribute to a healthy prot. Doing too much or ree or on the hope or

more business is devastating. Be able to track every dollar earned to the bottom line.


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13. Not knowing your Product or Your Customer

The market is always talking to you. You have to listen. Many is the business owner who had an idea

that they knew would kill the market But they went broke anyway. Do not be arrogant. Look

at the trends. The market is always changing. Twenty years ago, the ax machine was a must-have

piece o ofce equipment. Would you want to be selling ax machines today?

What problems does your product REALLY solve? Maybe its something you did not oresee. What

does your customer REALLY want? Its not what you want to sell them. Its not even the eatures o

your solution.

In our business, its not the sales training that people want theyre looking or sales and business

growth. Sales training is just the means to the end. Its like that old story about drill bits. A customer

walks into a hardware store and the sales clerk is explaining every eature o their ancy drills. The

customer is overwhelmed. He didnt come in or a drill. He doesnt care about the speed o the drill

or the metal alloys used in the drill bit. He just wants a hole. Help your customers understand how

to get what they want and youll be successul.

14. Poor Accountability: Financially and Behaviourally

I remember a wildly successul trucking company that was growing so ast that they ignored #11.

Their accounts receivables were high, collections low and the need or cash high. Without strongaccountability, they decided to delay the paying o their payroll taxes or a ew weeks to ree up

cash. A ew weeks led to months. The government can wait right? WRONG. That company went

down in a very big and ugly way.

Using money that belongs to someone else can be like a drug. Well pay it back later. But later

doesnt happen because you become used to having access to the extra cash that belongs to the

tax man, vendors, employees, etc. Financially, emotionally and psychically this devastates many

business owners to the point that bankruptcy is the only solution. I the money isnt yours dont

touch it without agreement.

Also, every person in sales must be accountable to their numbers. How many calls will they make?

How many appointments? How many presentations? These numbers must be reviewed each week

as part o holding everyone accountable. The power o a team is huge when managed properly.

Managing means measuring. No measurement no improvement.

I you need help creating a system o accountability that will work or your business, our SalesPartners

can help. Theyll create a system to bring your team together. Theyll hold your team responsible to

your Code o Honour and help hold everyone, including you, accountable to your numbers.


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15. No Clear Selling and Marketing Cycle to Generates Steady New Business

Its amazing that many businesses do not really know where most o their money comes rom.

Your business has a selling cycle, whether you know it, or not. I you are hoping that business will

continue to come rolling through the door, you are cruising or a bruising.

Analyse where all your sales come rom, starting rom origin to the nal close. What is the pattern?

Focus on that cycle and rene it until it hums. Dont all into the common trap that is a big mistake

or most businesses: Wasting a lot o time and money trying dierent marketing strategies, selling

strategies and pursuing tangents that some OTHER guys used that seemed to work or them. I you

have any business at all, you got it through a series o processes. Identiy them and maximise them

rst.

Our SalesPartners do an excellent job in helping clients do this properly. They help businesses

scoop up the millions o dollars that are still sitting on the table. I can tell you that I have personally

thrown more money away than I care to think in my career to marketing and PR companies that I

abdicated my marketing to. They were not bad people. They simply set out to create new strategies

to generate business or me rather than looking at what already worked and maximising that. And,

I was too impatient to stick to the knitting and ollow the process that attracted customers to my

business.

In the end the process is the process. Once identied and calibrated, you can improve each

step o the process. One o my team members said it well: Marketing or many is like an old hand

operated water pump. You pump like crazy and nothing happens at rst. Then it starts to gurgle,

trickle and ultimately a ow o water comes out. The problem is that it takes you a lot o energy to

get it owing. That is like a marketing strategy that says: Sell, sell, sell! Business starts owing. You

relax a bit to ull and rest and what happens? The water ows or a little while, trickles and stops.

Now what? Start pumping again. Thats a bad ormula. Stick a solar powered automatic pump on

that thing so you have a steady stream o income.

16. Thinking Momentum will Carry You

One o the dierences between a good business owner and a rookie salesperson is that when

a salesperson makes a couple o big sales, what do they do? Celebrate (thats good) and take a

break (thats not good). Remember our pump analogy? Momentum can be an excuse or not

doing anything. The ormula or momentum is velocity times mass. That means velocity must be

maintained and the amount o eort going in must be steady. I you back o, so do the results. A

good owner keeps systems moving. You use wins to raise the bar to more wins. Yes you celebrate.

But celebration doesnt mean taking your oot o the accelerator.


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17. Being too People Dependent Instead o System Dependent

The late Dr. Edwards Deming was the guru o quality control in the late 20th century. His point was

clear. A business must have systems and processes that allow people to do good work without

hampering their progress. I a problem arises, typically its a system problem not a people

problem.

The most overlooked system in business today is training. Its having systems that teach people

how to be competent and good at what they do. That is why SalesPartners are so busy. Whenever

you see lots o employee turnover its usually because o the lack o good systems. People are

expected to be superhuman or special. I I hear the words one more time, I cant nd good people.

I will scream! Most people are good. The systems are the problem.

Sometimes you are too close to your own business and need an external resource to help you

identiy what can be systematised. Our SalesPartners are experts at helping develop and incorporate

systems into businesses.

18. Hoping Instead o Goal Setting and Planning

Many wide eyed entrepreneurs go into business hoping or the best. That is a horrible business

plan. Clear goals pull you toward your dreams and desired outcomes. You have to become a

compulsive goal setter not just a problem solver. What do you want to deal with more: Goals orproblems?

The Little Voice Mastery Champion Level Goal Setting Program steps you into the right goals with

the right process to get what you want. Do plans always go according to plan? No. But the process

o creating a plan clears your head o the doubts, concerns, and surprises that can trip you up

later when you are already invested in the game. I am not a big planner. But I am a big goal setter.

Following a proper goal setting process will yield a simple plan. Do I always get my goals? No. But

it keeps me in motion and directed. The path to every goal allows you to correct and get bigger,

whether you achieve the goals, or not.

19. Solving Problems by Working Harder

I you have been in business or a while You will nd the solution to most challenges is NOT

working harder. That is a revolutionary concept or many people, just like it was or me. Working

harder at solving a problem that you have been working on or some time becomes deeating,

rustrating and orms bad habits. Many business owners have burnt themselves out and even quit

because o hard work that got them nowhere.


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That is why you must have advisors, a team, and be willing to take new risks in areas that are

challenging you and to nd new pathways that are more elegant, easy and lucrative. Sometimes

its a 180 degree shit in direction that solves the problem. The way to get out o a hole is to simply

stop digging!!

I you need someone rom the outside o your organisation to help you look at new ways to deal

with the same seemingly unsolvable problem, SalesPartners can give you a resh pair o eyes. Based

on working with many business clients across a wide spectrum o markets and industries, they have

been exposed to a variety o business systems and solutions that can benet your business, too.

20. Ignoring the Power o Reach, Association and Connection

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

I believe he did a huge disservice to entrepreneurs who came ater him. Waiting or the phone to

ring, blindly sending thousands o emails, hoping that someone sees your ad and nds you is a

sure road to ruin.

No matter how big or small you are, there are always those out there who you can connect with,

associate with, joint venture with, or simply talk to that can open a world o resources, capital and

ideas that you can never predict. Certainly you will never experience it i you dont reach out to the

world and ask. As I once heard I you dont ask the answer is already NO!

21. No Code

Every great team, business, culture, army or amily has one thing in common: A set o rules. I call it

a Code o Honour. Its a set o rules that sets the behavioural standards o the team itsel. The Ten

Commandments is a Code. The Constitution is a Code.

Many organisations have great products and great people, but they implode rom within. The

intellectual capital and energy is wasted because the team itsel either operates at hal capacity or is

dysunctional altogether. It doesnt matter how good your competition is, i your own team cannotget it together. This happens because in the desire to create open and ree thinking environments,

nobody wants to create rules that restrict. But, in the absence o rules, people make up their own.

Not good or bad just dierent. This is a giant problem and a sad one to see great ideas and

talents go to waste because people are going o in dierent directions.

Examples o good Code o Honour rules are: Never abandon a team-mate in need, communicate

direct about problems, dont blame others or justiy behaviour, and celebrate all wins. The Code o

Honour is a set o behavioural rules that determine the habitat that you and your team members

all live in. One Code does not serve all people. But it must serve your business, your mission and


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2011 XCEL Holdings LLC Blair Singer SalesPartners Worldwide 2 May 2011 Fatal Mistakes


your values. The size your company can successully grow to as an organisation is directly related

to your ability to enorce your rules.

So there you have it. Youve read the 21 atal mistakes to avoid with tips on how to avoid them. Here

is the good and bad news. The bad news is that you will probably make some o those mistakes

anyway. But the good news is that now you might be able to avoid many o these mistakes, or at

least correct course quickly.

Be awesome!

Blair

Blair eBook Fatal Business Mistakes

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