Small Business Threat # 1: Financial Forecasts, World Events. Listening to financial forecasts and other voices of doom is a serious threat to your equilibrium and momentum. With bad news it's too easy to make excuses. And, when boom times come, it's far too easy to let up and lose focus.
The recent recession, if it ever happened, did not affect everyone equally. (The definition of a recession is two quarters of 'negative growth'. You never know until much later if it really was a recession.) Some people took it very seriously. Others did not.
Small Business Threat# 2: A reactive mindset. If you take a 'wait and see' attitude, you'll find yourself in trouble so fast it will make your head spin. One of the first things I look at when assessing a company is their "reactive/proactive pulse". No amount of excellent marketing information or strategy can turn around a company if the key players do not have their heads screwed on straight.
Small Business Threat # 3: Competitors with superior positioning. This is perhaps the most serious threat of all. If someone in your market has preemptively positioned their company, you are forced into a defensive position. If you think that's okay, just imagine that you are Heinz Ketchup's biggest (yet relatively unknown) competitor and repeat the following statement five times: "It's also not Hunts!"
Small Business Threat # 4: Lack of systems. The only way to take a small company and
turn it into a big company is to create systems for everything you do. If you have ever considered a franchise (and the franchisee survival rate is a multiple of thesmall business survival rate), you probably noticed that they were selling you a SYSTEM-a consistent way of doing things.
The recent recession, if it ever happened, did not affect everyone equally. (The definition of a recession is two quarters of 'negative growth'. You never know until much later if it really was a recession.) Some people took it very seriously. Others did not.
Small Business Threat# 2: A reactive mindset. If you take a 'wait and see' attitude, you'll find yourself in trouble so fast it will make your head spin. One of the first things I look at when assessing a company is their "reactive/proactive pulse". No amount of excellent marketing information or strategy can turn around a company if the key players do not have their heads screwed on straight.
Small Business Threat # 3: Competitors with superior positioning. This is perhaps the most serious threat of all. If someone in your market has preemptively positioned their company, you are forced into a defensive position. If you think that's okay, just imagine that you are Heinz Ketchup's biggest (yet relatively unknown) competitor and repeat the following statement five times: "It's also not Hunts!"
Small Business Threat # 4: Lack of systems. The only way to take a small company and
turn it into a big company is to create systems for everything you do. If you have ever considered a franchise (and the franchisee survival rate is a multiple of thesmall business survival rate), you probably noticed that they were selling you a SYSTEM-a consistent way of doing things.
