Small Business Quick Quiz
Question #6
When faced with a management decision, and you don't know what to do, the best course of action is…
- a. get professional help
b. do nothing and hope it will go away
c. do what everyone else is doing
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The answers to the questions are listed here in short form. For more complete discussion of the issues raised, visit the linked resources. Better still, subscribe to Small Business Pro. newsletter.
6a. The intelligent decision — IF the professional advising you really knows the difference between small business and big business. Too many don’t. Shop around and make sure you find someone with a track record of success in advising small business. Then make them an integral part of your day-to-day operation. See Resource Information on Using Leverage to Work Less and Earn More and BIG Business versus Small Business.
6b. Like putting a bandage over gangrene and wondering why your flesh is still rotting! No way will it just go away. This is the ostrich approach to small business success. It’s guaranteed. (To fail!)
6c. Since 90% of small business people fail, doing what everyone else is doing is a pretty safe bet — if you want to go out of business faster.
6d. Managing by guesswork is like playing Russian Roulette with only one chamber of the gun empty. You may be lucky enough to get away with it a few times, but the outcome is inevitable. You either know what are the right things to do, and the right reasons for doing them, or you don’t. If you don’t know, go and find out from someone who does. The Profit Clinic site is a pretty good place to begin looking.
6e. Good idea — IF you have a Business Plan. And IF your Business Plan is a formal, written document (“I’ve got one in my head” is just wishful thinking!). And IF your Business Plan is worth the paper it’s printed on (most aren’t). That’s a lot of ifs. Most small business plans are a disheartening waste of time, effort and money because they’re the wrong things done for the wrong reasons. That’s why they end up gathering dust in filing cabinets or desk drawers rather than being living, vital guides to the day-to-day decision making in any small business. See the Resource Information on Business Planning.
6f. This is an interesting one. The reality is this... most of what BIG business does these days — especially in marketing — is an attempt to synthesize what small business has in real, live flesh and blood, using data processing and state of the art communications technology. In other words, they can never have what we have... they can only have a pale imitation. So why would you give up the real thing for the fake? When small business knows what it’s doing, BIG business has very little to teach it. In fact, BIG business has very little to teach small business anyway. It does everything on a slower, larger, more wasteful scale. In a very real sense, BIG business is just small business with a few more zeroes added. See the Resource Information on BIG Business versus Small Business.