The 10 Biggest Business Mistakes: And How To Avoid Them
Although experience is the best teacher, it’s also the most costly. Learning business lessons the hard way, through your own mistakes, often results in significant downturns or even failure. Business success doesn’t require a fabulous new product or service (doesn’t hurt, though) but does require avoiding the big mistakes. I made most of these big mistakes myself and barely lived to tell about it. So please do as I say and not as I did.
Read on to learn business lessons the easy way and achieve success by avoiding the dreaded and expensive ten big mistakes.
There Is No Us In Business
Many of the best companies, like top recording artists, are solo acts. Just as recording artists need a room full of other musicians and technicians to create their best music, sole owners need a team to produce and sell their product. Ultimately, however for solo acts it is their music and for the sole owner it is their business.
Remember for every Lennon and McCartney there is a Bob Dylan or Billy Joel. If, like a great front man, you are your business's differentiating factor and your team members' skills can be acquired for cash, keep your equity for yourself. Exchanging a percentage of a company you should believe will be your most valuable asset for a buyable skill is often a poor trade.
Your equity must also be selfishly guarded when you seek funding for your business. All alternatives to selling equity must be exhausted first.
One is the loneliest number so going solo will be tough at first but later you'll be happy you did. Trust me. Read on and I'll show you how.
Accelerate
Accelerate: 20 High-Performance Questions To Supercharge Your Business
If your business is stalled and you find you're spending more time solving problems than executing growth strategies, it's time to answer the 20 High-Performance Questions. Honest answers will map your business' route to your new destination of high profit and durable value while leaving your competition in the dust.
In a business environment where growing profits is considered unattainable and flat is the new up, Patrick Burke sees opportunity. Now, when your competitors are struggling, is the best time to add market share and new products. While everyone else is backing off the throttle, accelerate, take the lead, and keep it.
The 20 High-Performance Questions provide the definitive guide for you to develop best practices in the most critical aspects of your business-- so hop in, buckle up, turn the key, and let's see what your supercharged business can do!
Exit Velocity
There is a number; you likely have the figure in mind. You know, the number that results in zero financial worries for the rest of your life if invested wisely. It's the number that provides exit velocity from the gravitational pull of your financial needs. You also know, absent a winning lottery ticket or an unexpected inheritance, your present job isn't going to provide enough thrust or trajectory to get you to your desired financial altitude.
There is likely something else you know, even if you do not wish to readily admit it; your current job is not allowing you to maximize the economic value of your strengths. Few jobs do, unless it happens to be at a company with your name on the sign in front.
As you follow the struggles and successes of the fictional new business owner, Tim, you'll learn if you have what it takes to become an entrepreneur (the mere fact that you are reading this is a strong indicator you do). You will also learn how to deftly navigate your business to avoid those "big mistakes" that prevent you from achieving exit velocity.
Using this book as a guide for your own journey to financial freedom will shorten the trip, and even more importantly, make it fun.
Swing For The Fences
Succeeding in business is a lot like solving a puzzle, and as you know, children love puzzles. Swing for the Fences portrays business as a series of entertaining economic puzzles and solutions, presented in an easily understandable manner children will enjoy.
Patrick Burke has been helping his clients solve economic puzzles for decades. As a serial entrepreneur himself, he is intimately familiar with business puzzles and putting them together to create successful businesses.