4 Tips For Unbound Business Success

1. Don't Become A Statistic

Establish Dialog To Avoid An 80% Chance Of Businesses Failure

According to Bloomberg, 80% of new businesses fail within 18-months. There are a variety of reasons why they fail; however, the single most common reason is that business owners are out of touch with their customers.

It's imperative that business owners establish dialog with their customer-base and to obtain input on their products and services. The input should be used to refine the business offerings to make them more valuable and easier to use. Failing to do this will result in your ideas failing to take-off, or your company being outperformed by the competition.

2. Think 10-Steps Ahead

Invest Today & Reap The Rewards Tomorrow.

Some of the most important business decisions are made during the initial setup of the company. This also happens to be the time when companies are most vulnerable as the entrepreneur doesn't always have the right skill sets to make informed decisions.

One common trouble areas is vendor selection. Many startups opt to choose less expensive vendors because they need the margins to build the organization. Unfortunately, this planned gain is unrealized as there is unforeseen loss in sales and opportunity due to quality and/or supply issues.

Another prevalent area is in technology. Many entrepreneurs don't know enough about how process or technology works and subsequently rely on salesmanship to make the decision for them. Many of the resulting contracts have term commitments, which tie the business owner to a solution that they can't use, or a solution that costs too much to use because of unforeseen downstream impacts.

3. Avoid Perfection

So Long As It Works, Right?

Rome wasn't built in a day - it evolved over time. The same should be true for your new business. That said, there are a couple major words of caution to heed:

• Entrepreneurs can ill-afford rework. Starting down one path to suddenly shift to another is a bad idea as it wastes resources. Those resources may include your time, your money, as well as talent's faith in your leadership abilities. You must find the right balance between smart iterative work and poor planning.
• Some mistakes have larger consequences than others. Experience has shown that many entrepreneurs fail to invest in proper process and technology at startup. They leverage various 3rd party systems to address symptoms of a larger business need - which can result in poor communications, high costs, and inferior products and services. The trick here is to figure out how to work smarter - no harder.