Sin 1 - Failure To Set Goals

Perhaps the deadliest sin committed by business owners is a failure to set personal goals and the omission and separation of personal goals from the business and its goals.

Sin 2 - Actions

1. Write down your aims - where will you be in five years from now? Include family, friends, finance, hobbies, health and faith.

2. Picture your descendants 100 years from now reading about you. What would you tell them "what is important" about life?

Sin 2 - An Unclear Vision

Your vision comes from your primary purpose. Your business should be a means, rather than an end. It should enrich, rather than drain, your life.

Actions

1. Create your vision by asking questions: * What income do you want your business provide for you?

* How will it run without you?

* When will you be finished - three years, 10 years?

* What standards are required for managing, recruiting, operating?

2. Build your business with the end in mind.

3. Develop a business plan and review it regularly. No-one will do it except you.

Sin 3 - Paying Lip Service To Time Management

Where do you spend your time? With clients? On admin? Firefighting?

It is vital that you realise that you are more important than any client or customer you will ever have.

The growth and success of your business depends on you and you are the only one that can make it happen and move things forward.

Do everything you can for your customers but no-one should bump you off your schedule.

Actions

1. Plan your tasks every day in advance.

2. Diary time to work on your business.

3. Don't put daunting tasks on your do list'. Break them down into manageable chunks.

Sin 4 - Committing Insufficient Time And Resources To Marketing

I have yet to see a small business with a written marketing plan that is executed systematically.

Marketing for lead generation and sales is the lifeblood of every business. What are your strategies?"

Actions

1. Create a written marketing plan that directly addresses your target market.

2. Try at least three different approaches for each strategy. Monitor what works best.

3. Consider marketing as an investment not an expense. It should recoup many times more than its cost.

Sin 5 - Taking Your Team For Granted

If you want to get the most from you team you need to have a strategy. You need your people to be engaged and motivated.

Actions

1. Communicate your vision and strategy to your staff.

2. Hold a weekly team meeting to give and receive feedback.

3. Make work fun. Give people permission to make mistakes.

Sin 6 - No Clear Organisational Structure

When starting a business, usually everybody mucks in. Everybody does a bit of everything. The result is chaos.

Actions

1. Create an organisational structure chart as you would see your business when it is finished according to your primary purpose, vision and strategy.

2. For each role create an agreement. This is a summary of the results to be achieved by each job in the company. Have your staff sign it.

3. Task the person who is assigned a role to produce an operations manual for that role so they can easily be promoted, or replaced if they leave.

Sin 7 - A Casual Approach to Systems

The most successful businesses in the world have worked long and hard to perfect their systems.

They are never done and constantly seek to take advantage of new and emerging technologies.

Actions

1. Never stop asking: "How can I do this better, faster, cheaper, more efficiently?"

2. Simplify, automate, innovate: Are your procedures complex and cumbersome?