Making no effort to improve

Making no effort to improve is a major factor for business failure.  Many businesses fail because the entrepreneurs behind them were too confident of the superiority of their skills. This over confidence blinded their eyes to the little business improvement effort they needed to make to stand out. Business is dynamic, therefore, to succeed in the world of business you need to be dynamic; you need to learn the new skills of trade, understand and acquire the required technology that will help you to continue to maintain your relevance in the market place. When you fail to do this, get ready to be left behind.

Even if you cannot buy sophisticated technology, try to improve on your service delivery and spend some money to pick one or two technology that will help you to satisfy your customers. Do not expect to experience meaningful changes in your business if you continue to do the same thing over and over again. This is what I call business insanity. To prevent your business from failing, you need to put in your effort to completely eradicate this insanity.

Read more articles and publications on your line of business; attend seminars and workshops that are business oriented. Break loose from your comfort zone and step into the realm of positive interaction with people in your industry; most especially people that are doing better than your self. Do not copy them, but learn from them and apply what you learn with little enhancement to make your business more unique and profitable. Engage your customers in conversation to find out ways on which you can serve them better. Listen carefully as they talk, and you will be able gather enough information that you can work on to make your service and business more unique and leverage able.

Do not be contented with what you are offering now in your business, make the effort to improve no matter how little it is. When you do this your business will attract more customers that will help to boost your financial performance. This will make more money available for you to embrace more profitable opportunities for growth. Your effort for improvement will pay off if you continue to commit all you have to it. Do not say, “There is not much I can do”. There is so much you can do! You have not discovered it because you have not tried. Get up and dust your self, look up to sunshine and commit your mind to make a little business improvement, you will be amazed what you can do.

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Faulty Financial System

Faulty Financial System is one of the deadliest causes of business failure. Finance is a major factor to the survival of any business venture. Where there is no adequate finance to fund your business as at when due, business opportunities are missed and the business soon fails. In the light of the above, it is expedient that every entrepreneur knows how and where to source for cheap funds to finance or run his business. However, as essential as this, it is not always easy in most cases because of our faulty financial systems. This system comprises of the structures and policies of financial institutions. In most cases our financial institutions make it very difficult for those who truly desire financial assistance to assess it as at when due. This is as result of their strict and selfish policies which only favors those with good financial standing.

In Nigeria for instance, business loans are given out with strict conditions that will frustrates the survival of any business. They give out loans with no considerable time frame of repayment. For instance, where a bank lends N100, 000:00 to an entrepreneur at a going interest rate of 3% per month, to start a business and expect him or her to make payment monthly to offset his debt within six months, in my own opinion is putting too much weight on the business. When you remove about N20, 000:00 monthly to pay your debt, what will you use to run the business and embrace other lucrative opportunities that may help to sail you to business success? How can you even manage to pay back this loan completely if you do not have enough to run the business? This will lead to business failure if the entrepreneur has no other means of sourcing for funds to run his business.

The bank can make life easier for business owners if they can prolong their loan repayment period. This will prove mutually beneficial to both the bank and the business owner because the entrepreneur will now be able to spread the loan over a flexible time frame and the bank will equally make more money because the more time the money stays with entrepreneur, the more it labored vigorously for the bank. But because the banks are selfishly positioned for quick money, they are paying deaf ears to the pains of the sector they were set up to look after. Instead of helping the small and medium scale enterprises, they are diverting the money to run their privately owned business, and also to lend only to the rich. Thinking that this will solve their problems, it has plunged them into more problems. You cannot solve problems with problems. The rich borrowed huge sum of money to invest in business ventures which never deliver on the intended terms. Now, when these banks go to collect their money from these so called rich people, they are greeted with sophisticated lawyers who use the law to protect the rich and their corporation from litigation.

Some times these loans are given without collateral. Nigerian banks can afford to give loans to the rich without collateral, but will refuse to lend small amount of money to a business owner with viable business concept, but has no collateral. Even when the small business entrepreneur offers pragmatic reasons to support his ability to repay back, he will be turned down because has no connections and can not afford to bribe his or her way through.

A friend of mine who run a school business needed about N1, 000,000: 00 to add to what he had to purchase a piece of land to build a permanent structure for his school. He approached his bank to advance him the loan, but they refuse because he has no collateral. He even told them to buy the land in their name, and transfer ownership to him when payment is complete, but they still refuse. This makes me to wonder what the problem is with these banks. The school fees for a session, was able to pay for this loan. Though, the bank knew this because all his transactions were done through the bank, but they still refuse to help him.

The limiting role of our faulty financial system cannot be overemphasized. Whenever our financial system fails to live up to their mandate, the business that depends on them for sustainability will eventually fail.


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Bad EmployeeI

One of the greatest causes of business failure is bad employee(s). The people that you employ to run your business will either make or mar your success. If you are experiencing a frustrating moments in your business, the reason why your business is failing may just be because you hired the wrong person for the job. Your staffs are your greatest assets if they are good, and in the same vein, they can become a major liability if they are bad. Therefore, it is wise that you choose wisely those with whom you work with.

Majority of businesses fail because their employees drive out their potential customers through poor service delivery, obnoxious attitude and laziness to duty. Instead of running the business successfully, they collaborate with external forces to ruin the business. They may be technically qualified, but they are not diplomatically and socially suitable. How will your business succeed if your staffs do not carry out their duties enthusiastically? How will your business succeeds if your office becomes a place where people come and get insulted by your employees? Their complete lack of enthusiasm and social manners will reflect in the way they treat people and carry out their duties. Fine, your company may be the best technically, but because you lack people with high social skills to complement your technical skills, you will inevitably encounter business failure.

When you hire a thief, a witch or wizard, or somebody whom your secrete competitor introduced to you, your business will definitely fail. While you are doing everything positive to see that your business grows, these fellows are busy doing everything negative to see that your business fails. While they are in your business, their aims and objectives are not to you run it profitably, but to ruin it deliberately. All their activities in the business are that which destroys. They are the ones who will create disunity in the company. They are the ones destroying company’s properties. They are the ones who will not make extra effort for the growth of your company. In fact, they move about discouraging those who have good intentions for your company. They are the ones destroying your business contacts and contracts appointments. They know if your business fails and you still have those contacts and contracts appointments, you can still make a comeback. They do not want you to succeed, so they do everything to make sure your chances of success are ruined. If such people are allowed to be in your business for long, they will successfully make the business to fail.

The bad employee will spread your business strategies and techniques to your competitor so that they can outsmart you in the market place. When this happens you will begin to wonder how your competitors got to know your strategy. Friend, it is not far fetched; the little foxes that spoils and kills the bloom of business is within the company. Search and weed them out of your business and your company will grow. Those kinds of employees are not to be allowed to remain in any business enterprise that values success. 

THE INABILITY TO ATTRACT AND KEEP CUSTOMERS

The inability to attract and keep customers is one of the deadliest cause of business failure. In the world of business traffic is king. This principle is true whether your business is online or offline; traffic is king. For your business to succeed, you must know how to attract and keep customers. The number and quality of persons that visits your office for business are major factor in the success or failure of your business. Everybody you meet is somebody who could become your customer some time somewhere, and if you treat them well, they will bring in more people that will help to increase your profitability.

Majority of businesses that failed took for granted the key position that their customers play in their success. But those who valued their customer will do everything to keep them. They go the extra mile to offer quality, expert advice, effective consultation, recommendation incentive, value and in most cases customer recognition.

When you value and treat your customer like nobody has ever done, you will keep them for life, and not even a raise in your price will take them from you.

When you have established a reputation for customer satisfaction, you will then be able to attract quality customers;-people who are well connected locally and internationally. These are people who can help your business to grow tremendously. They do this by introducing you to their friends and associates who may as well be interested in your product or services.

My spiritual father-papa Ayo Oritsejafor has taught me many valuable things, and one the things I have learned from him is how to treat people with dignity. Papa Ayo Oritsejafor will treat you like a royal ambassador irrespective of whom you are and where you come from. He is open minded and delights in seeing the good in everybody. He is highly respected all over the world, not only because he is an effective and a dynamic preacher of the Gospel, but because of the way he treats people in a respectful and dignified way.

He is also married to an adorable and amiable queen who also shares in his philosophy and passion for treating people in a dignified manner. If you ever come in contact with this blessed couple, you will forever remember delightfully the glorious and dignified experience you had together with them. Consequently, the most interesting thing about this contact is that it lives you a better person than you were. This is one of the great things I have learned from my father and mother, and it will stay with me for life.

Now, let us pulse for moments and think! If a preacher of the gospel can humble himself and be this nice to people, how do you think you will ever succeed in business if you fail to treat people nicely? The survival, relevance and profitability of your business depends on your cordial relationship with people you meet in your day to day activities, whether in your office or in your neighborhood. He that wants to be treated like a king must first learn how to love people and treats them in a way that makes them loyal to him or her. Any business man that takes the time to treat his customers in a dignified way shall have their constant patronage and an undulating patronage, but he that fails to this shall walk a lonely way.

Take seriously the task of learning how to attract and keep your potential customers. This is the heart of your business. Every business profits wonderfully by keeping abreast of the fundamental elements of attracting, keeping and growing traffic.

Ignorance of products or Services Selling points

The selling points of a product or services is the most important element that ensures successful product marketing. Every business relies on effective marketing to emerge. If you do not under stand the selling points of your products or services you cannot pass it on to your workers or marketers. If your marketers do not know the selling points of your products, how can they convince their customers to see the benefits of the products? If you do not understand the selling points of your products you cannot help the customer to see how the products can help him solve his problems, and if the customer cannot see how your products or services can help him to solve his or her problems, he or she will equally not be able to release his or her hard earned money to you.

I have seen marketers bombard their customers with products details and features. This is a complete waste of time. Listen, nobody gives a dam about those long details; they are interested in how to find solutions to their own problems, and until you are able to show them how your offer can help them, you are alone. It is when you are able to show them how your products or services can help them solve their problems that you can make a sale. That is when money will come into your bank account.

To those who can provide solutions to the prevailing problems of humanity money comes easily and in contentious amount, but those who cannot, money avoid like a plaque.

In the light of the above, it is wise that you take your time to find out your products sales point and see how it relates to solving your customers problems. Invest your time to see how you can truly understand the situation of your targeted market, and find out a sales point in your product or services that can help them out. If you can do this then you are sure of making and being in business.


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