Are you a small business owner who is involved in every aspect of your business from being the bookkeeper, marketer, human resources manager, mediator, customer liaison officer and cleaner ?

The smaller your business is, the harder it can be for you to delegate some or all of these functions because chances are you dislike spending any money and, in fairness, the dollars can be tight. However, what you may fail to understand is that if you invest your dollars wisely in accessing the right type of goods and services to grow your business and be more effective, you will see positive changes occur over time. You can become more productive and profitable. You are stifling your success if you do not learn how to free up your time and find out how you can run your business so it can provide you the income, lifestyle and satisfaction that you set out to attain when you first started or took over your business. It requires development of your skills and knowledge, time and consistent action to do this.

Sure some business owners succeed in spite of themselves and often they pay a high price to do so. For you to succeed in your own business make sure you avoid making the following costly mistakes: .

1. Don't practice what you preach
   Tell other people what to do and don't do it yourself. Set a poor example.
   
2. Do not invest any time and money into developing yourself and your people.
   Forget ongoing personal and professional development. After all you know everything there is to know. What can anyone else teach you? You don't need fresh ideas and to learn how to run your business more effectively. You love working all hours of the day and night. Why waste money on your people? The more they learn, the more dissatisfied they'll become and leave you anyway. Better to keep your money and keep complaining about how hard it is to find the 'right' people.
   
3. Avoid planning at all costs
   Continue to be reactive and do things on the spur of the moment. Avoid writing a list of things to do each day and definitely do not use a diary to plan out what you will do. This will ensure you have no time and no life.
   
4. Eat whatever you want to and don't exercise
   Being unfit and overweight will ensure you'll feel tired and look awful. You'll also be susceptible to sickness. A great way to guarantee you won't be able to cope with the pressures of your personal and business life.
   
5. Spend most of your waking hours at work
   Start work early and stay late. This will sap you of energy and creativity. A surefire way to have unsatisfactory personal relationships. What do you care if you're too tired to spend time with your family and friends? They're used to never seeing you.
   
6. Avoid looking after your clients/customers
   Ignore them unless they contact you. The fact that without them you wouldn't be in business won't matter. Do your utmost to not deliver on your promises, avoid following them up or returning their calls.
   Never ask your clients/customers what they think about your products/services and the customer service (or is that disservice?) ...you may be pleasantly surprised or horrified to find out the real truth. Better not to know then you don't have to change.
   After all you're a multi-millionaire and it wouldn't matter to you if there was no one to purchase your goods and services...you can retire whenever you like.
   
7. Procrastinate at all costs
   Avoid making decisions and taking action. This will frustrate your people and they'll keep their ideas to help you and the business to themselves because they know you won't take any action. A boss who procrastinates, affects everyone else around them.
   
8. Be a Know-All
   Avoid asking your people for their feedback. Keep them out of the loop. Regular team meetings? The unsuccessful business owner doesn't see the need to talk with his/her team... it means they take time off and waste valuable company time. No need to listen to what they have to say...what would they know? They only work for you.
   If meetings are called it's only when there's (another) crisis.
   
9. Say 'yes' all day
   Let everyone interrupt you all day long. Keep your office door open so people can wander in and talk to you. You can guarantee that you won't get much work done. But that doesn't matter, does it?
   You've been doing it for so long now, why do anything differently? You want to be liked by everyone, regardless of the cost to you personally. As long as everyone else gets their work done, who cares if you work late to catch up?
   
10. Avoid Delegation at all costs
    After all, no one is as good as you. Delegating or outsourcing means spending money . It's better that you waste your time on secretarial tasks and doing the bookkeeping, because what else are you going to do with your time?

THE FINAL WORD

If you are a business owner you can truthfully say you avoid these 10 costly mistakes and you do the exact opposite ...then congratulations, your business must be thriving. Keep up the great work...you deserve your success .

On the other hand, if you constantly make these mistakes , then you are guaranteed not to succeed. You will leave work most days feeling stressed and unfulfilled. Is that what you really want? If so, then continue doing the same as you've always done. If not, then you must do something different. What are you prepared to do?

If you know where to go or what to do to make the changes, then go ahead and do it. If you're unsure go to resultsguaranteedcoaching.com but you better be serious about moving forwar d or become part of The Productivity Coaching Club www.theproductivitycoachingclub.com (you'll receive the first month for free!)

The choice is yours...continue doing the same things or change. As mentioned many times before, 'the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result'.

Have a great week

Lorraine Pirihi
Australia's No. 1 Productivity Coach

PS: Take action right now . Don't waste another minute to become highly successful. Go to resultsguaranteedcoaching.com for superfast results or join The Productivity Coaching Club and receive the first month's membership for free!) www.theproductivitycoachingclub.com .

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Discover how you can seriously increase your productivity, your profits and have a life too by joining The Productivity Coaching Club. Go to www.theproductivitycoachingclub.com

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