“Big Mistakes for Small Business”

To get the best out of this article the reader is advised to place their tongue firmly in their cheek, now read on.

1. Torment your customers with rules that you create to make your business life easier but don’t work for your customer. Turbo-charge this approach by constant harassment of the customer reminding them of your rules and provide and repeat a passive aggressive toned justification until the situation resolves itself.

2. Show up to appointments late with an excuse you powerfully believe in and would like others to believe in as well.

3. Say you will do something at a specific time, don’t do it by then, ring and explain after the due time why you have not been able to make the deadline and beg for another chance. Even more effective is to provide a justification about how it was just impossible. Season liberally with apologies.

4. “Stay on Message” repeat your communications assuming that your customers are stupid and really need and will thank you for being on their case. Works very effectively when combined with point 1.

5. Give discounts to new customers and make sure those who are rusted on are charged a higher price. Advertise the new price widely.

6. Be very confident about what you do and ignore what your competition is up to.

7. Work, work and more work never take a holiday, make sure your days off are filled with business affirming phone calls.
8. Make sure everyone know how hard you work and how you have to put in a super human effort to get the best out of your enterprise and make a living.

9. As the most talented and key person in your business make sure you make all the important decisions in the business and leave the small and unimportant decisions to others.

10. Find an approach that worked in the past and repeat it again and again until it comes good. Consistency is the key here.

11. Use your family as good cheap labour, pay the award to your employees and make sure that all rosters work for you.

12. After a few negative experiences with past employees make sure you bring that life learning into the management of all future employees. Systemise this so that all current and future employees know that you are on to them and will not stand any for it any longer.

13. Make everyone wait, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

14. For ‘Tradies”, buy a little white van or ute, get the sign writer to clearly put your name on the side, back and front. Now leave late each day for work, drive at speed, tailgate, cut in and out use both horn and finger to communicate your need for clear passage. Repeat on homeward journey.

15. Play it by ear and hope for the best.

16. Make sure all your forms are lengthy requiring the customer to repeatedly write the same information in hand written black pen.

17. The small print is important therefore make sure type face being used is difficult to read, small fonts work well as does extended length and framing it in legalise. When published it needs to be in a faint and washed out colour.

17 ¾. Think that the secrete to business expansion and success is somehow the inverse of the previous 17 points.

Well that’s a summary of my experiences over the past three weeks.

I would love the Blogging audience to add their “Ways to Shrink a Business”. Please do not invent things (lie) only describe real world occurrences you have personally experienced or are aware are actually in current business practice. I would love it if we could create an authoritative list of say 100 points. I am sure it is not going to be a very hard a task.

Its over to you….