Читать книгу Tafelberg Short: Your Small Business Nightmare - Bertie du Plessis - Страница 4

The reasons for the nightmare

You are living a nightmare and you have nobody to talk to. With this book I am saying to you: ‘You have been heard. Somebody understands your anguish. I’ve been there.’ I will offer you the wisdom that came out of my own blood, sweat and toil over almost two decades as a small business owner, as well as those of numerous owners of small enterprises who have come to me for advice over the years.

The most common and often most distressing aspect of the nightmare is that you work yourself to death but you still don’t make enough money.

There are many reasons why this could happen:

• You are in a tough industry and profit margins are thin.

• The business environment has changed and your business no longer fits the environment; you are flogging a dead horse.

• You are in the wrong business; this specific business does not suit your talents and your personality.

• The clients you have don’t pay enough because you don’t price your service or products profitably.

• You simply don’t know how much time you spend without invoicing or charging for it.

• You work inefficiently and waste time.

• You work inefficiently and waste money.

• You have too few clients or customers.

• You have the wrong clients.

• You pay too little attention to promotion.

• You don’t pay enough attention to building your brand.

• You try to compete on price.

• You try to compete on service.

• You try to compete on quality.

Let’s group these causes into four ‘baskets’:

• What’s with you and the kind of business you’re in? (reasons 1 to 3)

• You don’t keep proper score (reasons 4 to 7)

• Your marketing sucks (reasons 8 to 11)

• Your positioning sucks (reasons 12 to 14)

In the following sections we’ll look at each of these baskets in more depth.