5 Deadly Mistakes I made in Business

Once I had great ambitions to be a successful businessman like Richard Branson, Ricardo Semler, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs… maybe. Yet, my two failed attempts so far have taught me that perhaps this path is not for me. I can say that I learned a lot from failing. In particular I learned how not to succeed. *Coughs* More specifically, I learned five things that if I knew at the time I would have changed the path I was on. It wasn’t until afterwards that I knew I was up the creek. By then it was too late.

Not listening to my guts

I can’t count the amount of times my intuition told me that I was doing something wrong. One event I can remember committing to a 12 month plus work cycle thinking in my head… oh yes this is great idea. Then as I sat down to start it my heart sank. Have you ever had that feeling? I just knew on the inside that it was a bad choice. But alas, I soldiered on to fail miserably in defeat.

Not taking feedback seriously

When you have a product that isn’t selling the first, no the VERY first thing you ask yourself is why. The next thing you ask what are people saying about my product. I read watched on shoemoney.com this week that to be a successful blogger you need an edge. But that edge needs to be understood by your customers and how will you know you have them talking about it unless you get feedback to check. Feedback is really from cybernetics… it means when the system takes an output, learns from it and acts accordingly. In my case (both times) I ignored what people were saying… more commonly known as THE BUZZ. Hence, my input never changed and so the cycle of debt increase kept going. Pay attention to feedback!

Not questioning my own ideas

Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Cleopatra all have something in common. What? They were megalomaniacs of course. They never really thought through some of their ideas and I would say didn’t have a good critique process in place. Sure, it’s nice to be smart, wonderful and dashing… however do your ideas suck? If they don’t who told you they don’t? Mum? Ask someone you know who will tell you the truth and then listen to them. It’s not personal it’s about a product. Sure, you put your heart into it… but constructive criticism and even mindless sledging can improve you. If it leads to cash… who’s going to complain?

Not listening to my family

I don’t know how many times I told my wife she was wrong. Well, she was right. So was my Dad and of course a few others. Even though your family can be very discouraging at times and painful … listen to them. They may just be right about something.

Trusting in a product that wasn’t market researched

Finally… don’t ever go to market to buy a fat pig without first knowing if you can sell that pig and make a profit. Business is not all about profit but to keep it going it sure helps. If you are thinking of launching a product make sure in advance that you are confident about the market for it. Don’t be like me and hope to God it will work because it has to. Things in society, become popular through social networking, word of mouth and trust. Research these things… find out what people will say, how your idea will spread (if it will) and so on. If your product is not going to at least make it’s money back and then some… forget it. As a Doctor market research friend of mine used to say, ‘research, research, research.’

I hope this helps you to avoid the 20k plus disaster I had in business. Have I learned… yes. Some would say I have become overcautious and now take a long time to make business decisions. Me, I will get back on my feet again but let me tell you… I won’t do the above five again. Not anytime soon anyway.

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