Rather than write yet another online article on ‘5 steps towards business success’ or similar, let’s go down a different path. While we aren’t suggesting you want to sabotage your business (though following the steps in this article is a good place to start), you should consider the reverse of what we are saying if you do want your business to succeed.
In short, here are four things you shouldn’t do when running your business, unless, as we suggested, you do want to scupper the future of your operations.
Four steps towards business failure
Step 1: Don’t control your business costs
To attain business failure, don’t put a limit on how much you are spending. Don’t bother making a monthly budget, and don’t worry about your profit margins. Don’t listen to the advice of your accountant, and throw those red letter bills in the bin. Spend what you want, don’t save money, forget about strengthening your business future, and watch as your business starts to topple into the ground.
Step 2: Don’t stay within the confines of the law
Why bother with the red tape of rules and regulations when you can cut right through them by ignoring they exist. It takes too long to read those policies anyway, so assume you are doing the right thing by following your gut instinct. It doesn’t matter about compliance solutions for regulatory matters, as you probably don’t care much for your customers anyway (see below). There’s no need to declare your taxes as the government rarely check up on you. The law was made to be broken, right? Well, if you want to see failure, then believe that if you will!
Step 3: Ignore your customer’s needs
Customer are annoying, aren’t they? Complaining on the phone about a late delivery. Emailing you with petty enquiries about a product. Nagging you about the slow-running of your website. Why can’t they just shut up and get on with their lives, while you get on with yours? So slam down that phone, don’t respond to their emails, and let them navigate the slow speeds of your website without doing anything to rectify the problem. If you want your business to fail, it doesn’t matter what your customers need anyway!
Step 4: Stay within your traditional ways of thinking
Why does everything have to change? Sometimes, things are perfectly fine as they are, especially when trying to attain business failure. You don’t have to commit to modern marketing methods when spamming your customers with cold calls and leaflet drops is your preferred method. You don’t need to upgrade your computer systems when your employees can work perfectly fine on the heavyweight boxes of yesteryear. You don’t need to go with the flow when you have already lodged yourself downstream. Out with the new and in with the old, so baloney to all that is changing within the business world.
And so…
We are guessing you don’t want your business to fail. But if you relate to any of the above, despite our irreverent approach, then know that failure may not be too far away. Therefore, do the right thing, consider our approach a warning, and turn things around to move your business towards success, rather than the pitfalls of failure.
Thank you for reading!