Five Biggest Mistakes made by Successful Business Owners

Bridget DiCello — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 03:09:59 +0000

Not Following their Vision. A successful business owner sees possibilities, has strong opinions how things should be done and how the product or service should be delivered. Over time, that vision may get eroded due to obstacles, people who tell them their expectations are too high (employees, managers or peers), or getting plum worn out. No one sees the exact vision of an entrepreneur (yes, that can be a lonely place to be), but that also creates an extremely valuable niche and competitive advantage, which should not be ignored, buried or seen as too idealistic. It may not be achieved tomorrow, but if the owner remains the driving force, it will be realized! Their vision of the future needs to be shared, embodied in the written goals which are communicated to the team, and success measured against this vision regularly.
They get bored. Yes, despite all that is going on, successful business owners have an ongoing desire to innovate, intense drive towards a unique path, and a strong focus on improvement. Because of these factors, the owner may find themselves getting bored maintaining consistent business practices, accountabilities and adherence to quality standards – all necessary to run a successful business well. This is the point where they must have a team who can maintain the success they’ve created and still find time for the owner to innovate and drive new initiatives.
Blinded by success. I would never assume that my four-year-old who plays soccer is the best he will ever be at the game. However, owners may tend to assume that as adults and professionals they have stopped growing. Sure, they may learn new technical skills, but they also need to be willing to work on themselves and their team members, even the star players, to grow professionally. Both successful owners and key team players must be challenged in order to not lose motivation, and this must be a purposeful activity.
Forgetting their least favorite basics. In order to start a business, you have to get a lot of things right, and not all of them are an individual owner’s favorite things to do consistently and purposefully. These might include:
1. Hiring the right people, through a careful process
2. Measuring performance and providing routine accountability
3. Innovation in sales and marketing
4. Providing structure to enable the team to be successful
5. Watching the profitability and not just the growth in revenue
6. Watching the top-line revenue and not just the profit margin
Too much, or not enough, delegation. Out of a desire for life balance after working so hard to bring the business to this level of success, owners may move too far out of the business, assuming their wonderful team can handle it without their leadership involvement. On the other hand, the owner may also desire to micromanage what is most important – often an area they may have a greater ability to execute than anyone on the team. Certain things need to be delegated, and others don’t. When tasks are delegated, certain reporting structures and accountabilities must be in place to ensure the owner still experiences the results they desire.

Has your level of success been stalled due to one of these mistakes?

Processes are Strong Basis for Creative Thinking

Bridget DiCello — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 16:45:46 +0000

Few and far between is the entrepreneur who enjoys writing processes. After all, starting and running a business is much more about doing that writing, right?

Many an ambitious entrepreneur has worked tirelessly in a labor of love to create something really awesome without ever documenting a process. Then, maybe someday, when the company gets large enough to involve levels of management and departments, it might be time to write processes.

This thought processes misses an enormous opportunity!!

The process of documenting processes in writing has multiple, powerful benefits:

It extracts, from the entrepreneur’s brain, the brilliant details of how they want things done, which have been the basis for their success. These are things they often fail to mention, think others will automatically do, or don’t even realize they do themselves. Gold mine of information! Leads to consistency.
When followed by others, it leads to more effective communication of expectations, and enables employees to be more successful at completing tasks as expected. Many processes can be turned into checklists to ensure quality performance. Leads to increasingly successful employees.
Maybe most exciting, they provide a basis for creativity. How can you improve a process unless you know how it works now? How can you know if a process needs to be improved if it is not done consistently in the first place? By looking at and documenting each step of the process, each step becomes an opportunity for creativity and improvement. Flowchart the process and circle the areas with greatest risk exposure, greatest opportunity to create awesome customer experiences and greatest chances to innovate and move ahead of the competition. Leads to innovation and growth!

It can be quite a painful exercise to document processes – especially to getting started. And, as innovations happen, the processes really should be updated. But, even in a very growth-focused, entrepreneurial organization, there are still some people who ‘ground’ the rest of the team who, if supported by others, would gladly do this for you. Who are these individuals in your organization or department?

Bridget DiCelloBridget DiCello – Customized Leadership Training, Speaker & Executive Coach »

Five Biggest Mistakes made by Successful Business Owners

Processes are Strong Basis for Creative Thinking