Running a Small Business Doesn't Have to Be So Complicated

Posted by David Chism | Fri, Nov 2, 2012

If you run a small busi­ness, chances are you’ve read or heard a thou­sand times from all the best busi­ness books, class­rooms, sem­i­nars and busi­ness coach­es that in order to run a suc­cess­ful busi­ness you must do many of the fol­low­ing things: have a mar­ket­ing plan, a busi­ness plan, researched com­pe­ti­tion, have com­plet­ed a SWAT analy­sis, a sys­tem for track­ing leads, a CRM pro­gram, cre­at­ed a employ­ee man­u­al, an exit strat­e­gy and so on. If you are like me, your head starts spin­ning when you are plagued with all the things you’ve got to do to be suc­cess­ful. I think some­times all the busi­ness lead­ers out there make run­ning a small busi­ness com­pli­cat­ed. It does­n’t have to be! Don’t Try To Keep Up With the Big Guys Attend­ing sem­i­nars and fill­ing up your notepad or note­book app with pages of todos and goals is ok if you like that sort of thing. Maybe you lis­ten bet­ter by doing that. I sure don’t. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve just seen a lot of busi­ness­es strug­gle to make it because they are try­ing too hard to fol­low all the rules of suc­cess.” They try to keep up with the big play­ers in their indus­try. They want to be suc­cess­ful, make more mon­ey, work less, look and feel big. They do this by over­com­pli­cat­ing what it takes to run a small busi­ness. Just grow­ing a com­pa­ny large does­n’t mean you will be prof­itable and have a healthy busi­ness. I know a few busi­ness­es that run small com­pa­nies under the busi­ness suc­cess radar” and are more prof­itable: make more mon­ey than the big guys. Stop Com­par­ing and Succeed If there is one take­away from this blog post, I’d hope it would be this: stop com­par­ing your busi­ness to every­one else out there, be your­self and begin mov­ing your busi­ness for­ward. Instead of try­ing to fol­low every jot and tit­tle of what it takes to run a busi­ness (that you’ve heard works) just do one thing that you feel com­fort­able with right now. If your cus­tomer hires you because your brush­work looks and feels like glass when fin­ished, then start there: deliv­er those same results to every cus­tomer. Make ever cus­tomer’s home look the best. If cus­tomers hire your com­pa­ny because they feel they can trust you, don’t every let them down. Make it your goal to focus on 100% cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion with all your employ­ees. Share that vision with each employ­ee and make sure they all get it! All the oth­er stuff” that you hear about can have its place at the right time. Set­ting goals, work­ing with bud­gets, track­ing leads, all impor­tant things. Just take it one step at a time. Slow down, enjoy your work, and focus on mak­ing your busi­ness the best it can pos­si­bly be. P.S. Don’t just take my word for it. Order a copy or down­load to your dig­i­tal device a copy of REWORK by my friends at 37 Sig­nals. It goes against every­thing you’ve ever heard about run­ning a busi­ness. When you get the urge to write out your action plan, stop. Just re-read and enjoy it. ; ; ;

About David Chism

David Chism started his business out of a passion for helping small contracting businesses grow, be more profitable and become better known to their target clients. One lifelong hobby of David is using techie gadgets. So this blog is a place where he writes about technology, marketing ideas, just for fun (humor), personal thoughts on small business and more.

     
   
       

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