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here is a reason that the Small Business Administration says that over 80% of all small startup businesses will fail within their first 2 years, and that over 90% fail within 5 years. It seems that everyone makes pretty much the same mistakes over and over.

Some things to learn so that you aren't one of those is

1) You may believe that the 10% left surviving out of those figures are successful businesses. That's wrong as well. About 9% are "survivors." Survivors are those that "pay their bills" most of the time and operating somewhere close to break even. I wouldn't say that someone at breakevne is successful. And, of those that do truly survive they still don't typically make as much on an hourly basis as they did when they were working for someone else.

2) Less than 1% of all companies become truly successful and growth companies.

The reason I say what seems to be pretty bad numbers isn't to scare you away from running your own business. But it is to shake you a bit so that you don't go out there copying 90% of all other businesses.

Biggest Mistakes Almost All Small Businesses Make

• Never be "at the mercy of anything or anyone" and that includes the economy. Instead always be in control of designing waht happens in your business.
• Budget -- allowing the budget to determine what they do instead of doing what they should do no matter what the budget.
• Marketing -- Trying to save money on marketing instead of marketing to generate the number of dollars and clients you want
• Management of business -- Being busy, too busy to get the RIGHT things done. There are about 5-8 things to do that are CRITICAL to your success. Do every one of them every week and you won't have the 50-60 things that seem to overload you that keeps you from achieving the success you want.
• Not having a business plan. A business plan isn't a piece of paper that you need for the bank to give you a loan. It's a place for you to discover where to make the most money you can possibly make.
• Copying everyone else -- When 90% of all businesses fail in 2-5 years, another 9% barely make ends meet, that means that IF you do what everyone else does, copy the other 99% you're doomed to repeat their mistakes. But if you can discover what the 1% know, and, frankly that's easy, then you'll leap to the success you thought you'd have by now.

I'd say that if you get those three things right you'll be extremely successful.

Never be at the mercy of anyone or anything

I know that some of you are saying, "Well, that's easier said than done. What do I do when I don't know what to do?" It's simple, get help from someone that's been there and succeeded to a level beyond where you are. Don't copy all of those around you at your level, they are very likely right where you are.

Actually, by defining to yourself at the beginning that you will NEVER allow yourself to be at the mercy of anyone or anything and that you'll fix problems quickly or get help to fix them is the key. Those that set there in a fog are doomed.

The number one key to your business success is to develop a business plan that has your answers about where you'll be, how you'll get there, and follow it WITHOUT fail. Identify in the business plan the "critical goals" and deliver them each and every week,and you are virtually guaranteed success.

Budget -- Don't be at the mercy of the budget

This one may surprise you. I do several workshops a month, and ask, "What do you do the the first month that your sales won't pay your overhead?" Everyone in the room ALWAYs get's it wrong which means that all businesses starting out will make this mistake. It's only a matter of how fast they learn how to fix it that determines their survival, and whether they move from failure to super growth.

It's this simple. We have all been trained wrong about how we manage a budget. When we were growing up our fathers had a fixed income. We were taught that the way ot manage a fixed budget is that even with that pile of things we'd like to do, we probably have to throw out everything, all but 1 or 2 high priority things, and even then we're likely to cut those down to doing only 80-90% of those.

If we apply that principle to managing our business we are doomed. That's what causes that downward spiral from month to month, and it causes us to make that first mistake, to be at the mercy of something.

Here's a story that might clarify what I mean.

How to Turn $3,000 Into $100,000 Within 30 days

John, the owner of a small startup construction company had sold $60,000 his first year of business, but had a $250,000 overhead, a $190,000+ loss. We did a simple, quick business plan and figured that if we spent about $3,000 on marketing we should sell about $100,000 within the next 30 days. Sounds like a GOOD plan.

However, his response was, "I don't have the $3,000."  I don't get it, John. You have over $15,000 a month going on the door for overhead that produce NOTHING, but you won't spend $3,000 that would produce over 33 times ROI within 30 days.

In his head, he was STUCK. He just plain didn't have the $3,000.

Then he threw another curve at me. He said, "that marketing we've been doing costs way too much anyway" I've found that by using "word of mouth" it doesn't cost me anything.

So, John, let me get this straight. You'd rather spend nothing on marketing while you see $15,000 flow OUT instead of spending $3,000 that would turn into $100,000 within the next 30 days, is that right?

He looked at me with a shocked look no his face. "I have never really thought of it that way. I've just seen those rather large marketing costs and was trying to save money. When I get a referral from a client it doesn't cost me anything.

I told him, "It isn't the up front cost of marketing that counts. It's what does it cost to acquire a client." For instance if you spend $200 to acquire a customer that spent $5,000 with you shouldn't you be asking yourself "How many of those do I want to buy? When you say "that's expensive" you are limiting yourself. The other just keeps delivering profits over and over. Yes, after we have a steady flow of clients we can re-evaluate that $200 to see if we can find an even cheaper way, but, for now, IF it's profitable to buy a customer at the rate we'd better be buying as many of them as we can.

Although John didn't have the $3,000T anywhere, he did borrow it, generated over $200,000 that month (not the $100,000 he planned), and paid back the $3,000 within 30 days. When he could see that investing in his business would generate more than it cost, then he stopped being at the mercy of his budget and found the money. That's the difference between successful thinking, and unsuccessful thinking.

I tell clients that say, "I don't have the money" when we've got a clear plan that would generate 10's of times multipliers. Close your doors NOW. You are wasting your time and money . . . UNLESS you work on changing your mindset that "you are at the mercy of something or someone." You can't afford to keep your doors open. The faster you close the doors the less it'll cost you. Look back at John. He had $15,000 a month flowing out that produced NOTHING (his overhead), and yet he couldn't bring himself to find or spend $3,000 that would generate 33 times more.

Don't ever be at the mercy of anybody or anything, especially your own budget.

Don't Have a Business Plan

i think John's story above pretty much says it. He was SURE that he knew how to run his business, so it was "in his head." But he lost $190,000 his first year. Once we had a business plan in place, we found that we could generate 33 times what we invest in our business on a monthly basis. But, even then, John was hesitant to do it. The answers were in the business plan, but due to John's self limiting ways of thinking, he just couldn't bring himself to do what the plan said.

But when we followed the plan, he actually generated double what the plan had suggested. Actually, because we were following the plan, and tweaking what we already had seen, we found additional ways to make it even better as we went along. The plan was dynamic in that, now that we could see the critical points to success we were tuning them up even more and getting even higher results.

To Your Success

Alan Boyer

$100K Coach

Small Business Marketing Coach