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What Is Your Biggest Business Weakness?
[NOTE: This post is part of a series on Entrepreneurship 101 to give a kick-start to those who are thinking about starting their own business. Our regular Job-Seeking and Career-Improvement programming will continue soon!]
Now that you have a good reason to start a business, have enough money to start a business, know what business type you want to start, and how you want to start it, you’re ready to roll, right?
Actually, no. Now you’re ready to do a little planning.
And you should know that I’m not usually the guy that says, “Stop! Wait! We need to plan more!” I’m more of a, “Ready, FIRE!, Aim” kinda guy.
However, if you’re about to sink your life savings into a new business, I would think you’d want to take just a moment to plan just a few things.
Today, I want to you to take a clear-eyed view of your business enterprise to discover what your biggest weaknesses are.
KNOW YOUR WEAKNESS
Now, I don’t mean weakness in the “97 pound weakling” sense. While it may feel like some of your competition is kicking sand in your face, walking down the beach and punching them out won’t help.
Okay, it might help. But, these days, it’s called “assault” and you can’t run a business from jail.
I’m not trying to be negative by focusing on the weaknesses. It’s just that most folks start a business thinking, “If I could only get 1% of the business in my region, I’d be rich! And how hard could it be to get 1 measly percent?”
If, on the other hand, you start the business knowing what your weakness is, you can target it and compensate for it.
For instance, “I have the technical, work-doing part of this down cold. Much better than the other guys. However, I don’t have the resources to pay for 5 more guys to do a rush job.” Now you figure out how to compensate for that weakness (pay 1/2 up front on rush jobs, don’t accept rush jobs, etc.)
So, what is your weakness?
THE 3 MAIN WEAKNESSES FOR MOST NEW BUSINESSES
As a brand new business, you’re going to quickly run into at least one of the following weaknesses. Identify it before you begin and your life will be easier and your business will be more successful.
Time - There’s only one of you and, if you have partners, only so many of them. We all have 24 hours a day to divide between work, family, and helping others. Oh, and sleeping. As a result, you’ve got to guard your time well.
I work off and on with a small business that has a customizable piece of pretty cool software. Unfortunately, they want it to do something for everyone. Which means that they have to do a massive customization for every new customer.
As any business, they want and need more business constantly. However, since they’re fully committed to their current customers, they can’t really take on new customers without hurting service and timelines with their existing customers.
Don’t get your fingers into too many pies - you’ll just do a bad job for a lot of people. Commit to what you can do and get used to saying, “NO!” to everything else.
Money - Similar to the above, you’ve only got so much money set aside for your business. And there are more than enough new business / small business organizations out there to suck it all dry and then some.
There will be a lot of salespeople hounding you with what seems like a lot of really good / cool / useful stuff. But you’ve got to keep your money committed to your business as much as possible. Most successful small businesspeople learn to be a kind of miser because of this.
There is a limit to your money. Hold on to it as long as possible. Rather than figuring you’re going to get that massive sale tomorrow, plan for not getting any sales for awhile. That way, you’ll have your money when you need it.
Expertise - By this, I don’t mean your skill level (although that could be a problem, too - it’s just rare in a new business). I mean the fact that you know how to do one thing really well. Which also means that you’re really bad at many other things.
Your time is best spent utilizing your best expertise and, if something else really needs to be done, find someone who has their best expertise in that area. That way, you’ll both be doing your most productive work, which will help the business succeed.
Be wary of committing to jobs that require expertise that you don’t have. In the end, your clients will be much more comfortable and impressed with you if you say, “No - I don’t have the skills or personnel who can do that”. Especially if you follow it up with, “but here is what I do better than anyone else around…”
By knowing your biggest weakness, you can compensate for it. If you deny reality and say that you don’t really have a weakness, you’ll be blindsided by it over and over again.
If you can’t figure out what your biggest weakness is, you’re not ready to go into business yet. Don’t worry - if you ask a few people, they’ll be glad to go on and on about it!
Next In The Entrepreneurship 101 Series: Where To Find Good Business Advice
Enjoy the Search!
-Dan
Photo by: furryscaly
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