Small Business Blog from Atlantic Canada

Trusting your intuition means tuning in to the energy you feel, following that energy every moment and trusting that it will lead you to where you want to go. Intuition is intangible. It cannot be seen or heard. You just know it. It is your strongest business ally. Trust it.

Having worked with a number of small business leaders, I have noticed that they all commit some common mistakes. Here is my list of the top five mistakes they make:
1. Attitude towards employees: Some leaders do not value employees at all. Employees are not treated with respect and their work not valued at all. Small [...]

“This is the way we do things around here.” Do you not tell this to every employee who joins your organization? Your organization has its own work environment, its own way of doing things, its own processes and its own politics. How your organization approaches problems, what it believes in and its thought process defines its personality. This is what is corporate culture. It is born out of your organization’s beliefs and philosophies about why it does things the way it does. It is born out of how you with your stakeholders. Consistently doing the things you do results in your corporate culture.

To differentiate in a crowded marketplace, you need to think outside the “core-benefits” perception. The best part is no one will try to imitate them since what you do differently is not perceived as a core-benefit. Perhaps such an approach will make your customers root for you. FedEx decided to create another core-benefit: overnight delivery - and it succeeded. Volvo, Starbucks, Nike and all such successful organizations have expanded what the term “core-benefits” mean.

As a small business owner or entrepreneur do you empower your team? Do you trust your employees to effectively do their jobs? You started your startup with passion, laser focus and attention to detail. Just as an infant starts to walk on its own, your organization does too. When that happens, do you turn into a control freak? If you continue to insist on minutely controlling every aspect of your business, you have succumbed to the “small business owner syndrome”. Such entrepreneurs think their way is the only way.

A small business had a very chaotic style of functioning. I will focus on the development team in this example. Work of the day depended on which customer complained the loudest to the CEO. This caused the pending task list to grow exponentially. And when the current customer was a bit satisfied, they turned their attention to the next screaming customer, and so on. This is a vicious cycle. When you throw in new customers into the mix, the cycle keeps growing. The development and customer support team were a demotivated lot. No new R&D was taking place. It got to a point where the support team just fixed one bug; it in turn introduced 10 other bugs. There was no pride in ownership of work. It was only a matter of time when the good people would leave. - Strategy and marketing consultants for businesses in Halifax Nova Scotia