Analyzing what went wrong
Telling secrets and talking about mistakes
I don’t know about you but I haven’t exactly been trained to broadcast mistakes to the world. Quite to the contrary, actually. You know, you can talk about things with close friends, but keeping the positive face to the world is really important.
When I see articles and blog posts about making mistakes in small business they seem to fall into two camps. The first one is someone talking about mistakes other people make. The other is talking about mistakes they made in the past, with assurance that they are now very successful (usually with impressive dollar amounts attached). An exception to these is a very insightful post by Havi Brooks, Its not the economy. In it she challenges us:
You know I don’t go in much for the tough love approach here, but if we’re talking about businesses that thrive, I really have to say this:
If yours isn’t one of them, this is the time to figure out what’s not working.
Ok Havi, I’m taking your challenge. Since I have already broadcast to the world in my last post that My business has cracked, and I need to figure out how to get myself out of this mess, I’ve decided to analyze some of the ways I got here, and the ways I am trying to get out. Here on the blog.
Deep breath, as I jump off the cliff. One that feels very high with lots of sharp rocks below. As I think about the mistakes I have made, I see this could be a long series. At least I’ll be able to think of ideas. Its been tough to find topics to write about while I was trying to live a double life.
I also see how many secrets I have been keeping from myself. Or maybe its just not wanting to face facts, or wishful thinking that if I just want it bad enough, it will happen.
Crashes are a series of small factors adding up
My husband is a pilot. (Ok, he’s also an engineer, which contributes to this behavior). Every time a plane crashes, he has to analyze it in great detail. Early in our relationship I actually went to ground school to try to understand this fascination with crashes. I heard many stories of pilots being obsessed with crashes. They think of it as learning how to avoid them. You can buy recordings to listen to about crashes, the magazines write long articles about them, and the pilots association maintains databases with great detail.
My big take away from crash analysis 101; it is a series of small things that align in a particularly unfortunate way that create most crashes. Pilots learn from other pilots mistakes, I hope other small business owners will learn from the myriad of mistakes we have made. Sure wish I had known more of the pitfalls. Do tell me some of yours also, so I can avoid them in the future.
I’m also doing this to really own it. I realize if I really want this business to work, I have to clean up a whole series of problems. I keep wishing there is one big thing to find that will make all the difference, so instead of making the incremental changes, I go off looking for the magic cure.
Small Business as Personal Development
At the Institute for Management Consultants (IMC) conference last week, Kathie Nelson commented that starting a small business was the best personal development program around. No kidding. I would also say that the way my small business intersects with my personal stuff creates a lot of the blocks and challenges.
Trying to maintain the successful professional public image while I have been struggling to make things work has been awful. It lead to feeling like a fraud and feeling very alone in the mess (not counting Tom, my business partner. He gets all the good, bad and ugly).
Making a more solid connection to personal development was actually very helpful. Twenty years ago, Tom and I owned an alternative bookstore that focused on healing, inspiration and celebration. I don’t think we have utilized as much of what we learned then as we could have. So that will be part of this deconstruction. There are humans trying to run this business. Imperfect, emotional artist types trying to be business people.
So many mistakes, so little time
Where to start? So many to chose from. Here are just a few topics I am thinking about. Stay tuned.
- The myriad of mistakes you can make with your branding
- Creating products is not ten easy steps
- Will I ever be able to describe what I do?
- Shopping carts are evil
- What do you mean you can’t tell anyone how much you like our products?
- The ugly side of speaking at conferences
- What do you mean I need a sales process?
- If I was good at systems don’t you think I’d have them?
12 Responses to “Analyzing what went wrong”
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Looks like an interesting series with lots of golden nuggets. I’ll be watching and learning.
A small business is a high risk at the best of times. One reason is that the skill set required to develop a startup and take it to a going concern of say 50-100 people is immense. At a minimum, I wouldn’t get involved with any new company that didn’t have a management team of at least 4-5 people, and enough capital to survive for a year or more. The skills needed include managing finances (an accounting type of personality), business strategy (a clever hyper-competitive CEO who has learned from lots of mistakes), technical management(a genius super geek who can also relate to people), marketing (a publicity hound who understands how to get positive attention), sales (someone who actually likes calling people and closing sales, and is very good at it), and product development (a visionary who excites people with deep knowledge of the industry and the creative ability to translate needs into products and/or services that people want).
That’s my startup dream team. But beyond that, you need to be able to differentiate your offering from all others, and have the good luck of finding contract opportunities to start the cash flow.
But, you can do all that and not be successful simply because in the end there is not enough of a market for what YOU want to do. The emphasis in business cannot be on YOU, but on THE MARKET. Who is your market, and do you have something that they want? I once invested $40,000 in a collection of web names that all had the ending 724. At the time I thought I was clever, but in the end, no one wanted them as a set. I lost all my money. Since then, the first question I ask is: Is there an existing market or can a market be created for this product or service? Creating markets is expensive and highly risky. Going into an existing market requires that you do something to get noticed, which also takes money. For me, the best marketing book has always been Geoffrey Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm.” I wish I had read it before I started my business.
@Gary Woodill: Maybe my next career will be writing all the blog posts inspired by your comments. So much here. I can add to my list:
* just because you can create your own job doesn’t mean you can create a company
* now what, I only have a small subset of the skill I really need
* just because they say they like it doesn’t mean they’ll spend the money
* how can I know so much and so little at the same time
* looking up from the bottom of the chasm
I continue to find it comforting that people like you who I respect so much, have also made costly mistakes in business. Its one thing to read about famous entrepreneurs messing up repeatedly, its another to have it be someone who you have met in the flesh.
@Terry: I really do hope you can learn something, hopefully so you can avoid some of my mistakes!
Christine, the fact that you are sharing this experience, shows the calibre of the entrepreneur that you are. Many would decide to quit, you are facing your demons head on. I appauld you! I will be following and supporting you every step of the way.
@Emma King: Support is highly appreciated. It feels very contrary to be talking about this stuff. However, important given I want it to change.
Linked from Tony Karrer’s post.The moment I read “my business cracked” even b4 I got here I wanted to say, “Coz you weren’t in your alignment” and they need you to do what you were meant to do for the New World:). Follow downstream you will be fine! TQ for being you.
I-Chen,
You are so right. It was hard to see at first, but as I allow myself to align more fully, it is indeed getting better.Thanks for your affirmation.