Top Ten Mistakes Made In The First Few Years of Business

 by: Catherine Franz

Consultants, coaches, accountants, engineers, and other solopreneurs starting a service business, make common mistakes that cost them to be ineffective with their resources. In turn, these mistakes bring on a slow, frustrating success or even force them to remove their shingle because they run out of resources, normally money.

You would think with all the training and knowledge now available that these individuals would be making fewer mistakes. Actually, 2004 had a large increase in business failures due to selling a service before they cultivated their service.

You will want to see if any of these items are biting into your assets. You will want to be honest here:

1. You don't have all the knowledge needed to bring your business to fruition, yet you think you do. Alternatively, you could be missing the skills. Whatever you are missing, you are going to need the finances to close the holes -- either through a self-education process or using outside support.

2. You aren't honest with yourself on how much effort it needs to cultivate your ideas and projects. Do you start a project and give up after you work on it, and work on it, and lose momentum or energy to complete it? If you do this frequently, you want to evaluate your ego’s presence.

3. Do you buy into societies "quick get" philosophy? Are you always buying the next best answer to slice bread? Stop chasing possibilities and get down to working your processes.

4. You are in it for the wrong reasons. You have an eye on the prize and don't want to work the journey. If you want to make exceptional money, it’s going to take two or three times the time you estimated. Is your eye on the possibilities or on the work? There is a time for both, do you know when its time, and when it’s not?

5. Do you stop too soon? Understand that it takes more than one or two tries. You need to make small adaptations and keep working it. Do you point the finger at the marketplace? This doesn't work; the finger is on your processes, your systems.

6. You want to do it alone or you feel alone on your journey, and you operate that way. Don't ask for help from the wrong people. You are setting up your request for failure. Ask for assistance from people who are capable of giving it to you, people who are unattached to the outcome.

7. You are either under funded physically, mentally, or financially. You can run a service business with almost no money, yet you will need to make up for it in time. Your time will be the money exchange.

8. You spend more than you make no matter how much money your business earns. Do you have a tendency to buy more things because you are making more money? You are sabotaging your own success. Cushions are more important than new things.

9. You keep looking for the next piece of information for the answer, yet you still haven't used the other information accumulated. Stop accumulating. Start integrating what you have into your processes or systems, and then look for new parts to add.

10. You harbor a hidden shadow that if you do sell your services, and it goes well, you will really have to get down and give the service. This is a fear of success; it is usually hidden very well.

If you even suspect that you fall into one of these, your truthfulness and acknowledgment will determine your future success; you will want to find some support to work through it quickly. These mistakes cost people their business everyday. Even if one is ten percent correct, find what that ten percent is, acknowledge it, find a consultant or coach and solve it. Don't drag it through another year with the similar results.

Make a choice, be honest, and find a way to change it for the last time. Afterwards, lift up your glass in a toast. You deserve it.