There are quite a few mistakes that businesses large and small regularly make. So, what are those mistakes? These include every mistake that businesses drive their companies into the ground. To save your business to drive into the ground, here’s what not to do:
1. Ignore customer feedback.
This is the most common mistake done by every company’s owner. One surefire way to run your business into the ground is to disregard your customers. And yet, companies do this–a lot. Without asking your customers the right questions and listening to their answers, you’re not going to have a very clear understanding of what they want from your product or service. How can you continue to fill their needs if you don’t know what they are? The
next thing you know, you’ve lost these customers to a competitor who finds a way to fulfill the customer’s wishes in a creative way.
2. Disregard ideas from the front lines.
You have all the numbers–sales, web traffic, conversions. You’ve got all the information you could possibly need, so listening to suggestions from staff is a waste of your time, and they’ve got a job to do, right? Wrong. If you want to grow your company, grow your listening skills. Your employees are on the front lines and know things the numbers won’t tell you. So don’t be dissuaded from keeping your ears open for good ideas.
3. Hold meetings–lots of them.
Don’t have anything to do? Call a meeting so nobody else will get anything done either. For many of us, there is no bigger waste of time. We all get pulled from our work for reasons we can’t even comprehend. And then, if we find ourselves in a meeting that doesn’t even apply to us, we can’t leave. In this wondrous age of digital everything, meetings should really only be held when there is a topic that can’t be shared or resolved through email.
4. Make your employees work as many hours as possible.
Many companies applaud employees who work as many hours as they can each day, as though more hours spent at the office always equates to higher productivity. You know that guy who makes sure to walk around everywhere, coffee in hand, first thing in the morning just so you know he was there before you? He’s not actually getting any work done while he’s doing that. Nor is he getting any work done as he walks around the office at the end of the day to make sure everyone knows he’s still there. And while he’s walking around not getting anything done, he’s distracting his coworkers from getting anything done, too.
5. Establish a clear hierarchy of who’s in charge.
Some companies like to make sure every employee memorizes and understands the company organization chart. People higher up are even given physical symbols of their place in the company to make it clear who should be respected.
6. Forget marketing, because you don’t need It.
Your product is earth-shattering and will sell itself. Why would you need a marketing team, much less a marketing budget? Well, because no one is ever going to buy your product if they don’t know about it. Pretty much every company spends something on marketing. Most companies, however, don’t spend enough.
How to solve these problems:-
● Urge people to schedule walk-and-talks with you. Set aside a full week once or twice a year with 20-minute time slots that people can schedule with you.
● When an employee has an idea to share, schedule a 20-minute meeting and do not go over the allotted time.
● If the employee tries to go over the 20-minute scheduled meeting time, suggest that he/she send an email to you with anything that wasn’t shared
● Only bring topics to a meeting that will have importance to everyone attending. More specialized topics can be discussed at another time with a more targeted group.
● Encourage your employees to each makes a short priority list every morning and to address the items on their lists early in the day. There should be no more than three items. This way, employees will not end up staying late to finish priority items that got pushed to the end of the day.
● If you notice that an employee has worked a long day or two, make sure that he/she works a short day later that same week.
● Encourage idea-sharing from all of your employees.
● Offer profit sharing to your employees. In this way, your employees directly benefit or suffer) from how well your company does financially. Monthly income is a great motivator.
● Hire enough people to get the job done. Marketing today is more than purchasing ads in publications. There are multiple social media venues, magazines and newspapers, online publications, review sites and more. These all need to be monitored and contributed to daily.
● Hire the right people. Anyone in marketing or PR needs to be an exceptional writer and communicator. Otherwise, any message you try to send out will go unnoticed or, worse, communicate the wrong message.
