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Small business owners and entrepreneurs are rarely described as lazy. For good reason. People in business for themselves are some of the hardest working people there are. However, it is possible to slip into habits of laziness from time to time. In fact, it is entirely possible to work hard every day, but still be lazy in some ways.

Lazy Habits

Getting stuck in your ways just because that’s what you have always done is lazy. As a small business owner, you can’t stay the same for too long. You need to always be growing, learning, and pushing yourself.

Consider the sales person. You were trained on sales tactics 20 years ago. Your method is still the same today. You make cold call after cold call, relying on a formula to ensure that you get sales. It is lazy to keep doing the same tactics without improvement. Its always lazy not to change with the times.

You can go ahead and tell me that you do what you do because it works. But have you ever considered that something else may work better? Don’t ever settle for good enough.

Mental Laziness

When was the last time you picked up a business book? Too many small business owners never crack a book, even though there are many wonderful books out there on just about every topic. There are also Cd’s and videos, so there is really no excuse not to learn, and keep learning.

You should always be learning.

You should also always be challenging the status quo in your business. There is no problem that can’t be solved. Even a toothless squirrel will eventually crack a nut. Don’t allow yourself or your business to be boxed in by problems and by what your don’t know. Challenge yourself to think your way to the next level. Here’s a free hint: enlist some help, either mentors or consultants, to brainstorm answers to your business problems and sticking points.

Your mind is always on and active as a business owner. But is it being applied to anything more than just the daily tasks of the business? Stretch yourself to spend some of your mental power on working on the business, planning and strategizing for the future. You need to push way beyond the day to day. Not doing so is just plain lazy.

Resting on Laurels

Hard work does pay off. When you get to a certain level of success in your business, it is tempting to rest on your laurels. Until you sell your business and retire, you have never achieved your ultimate level of success. Yes, congratulate yourself on getting there, on reaching your goal. Then set a new goal.

The big problem on reaching a point and then just hoping to stay there is that it is often just as hard, if not harder, to maintain a certain level as it is to achieve it. If you are not pushing, growing, learning, you may be being left behind.

So, while you do deserve a pat on the back, and maybe more vacation time and a bigger paycheck, don’t get lazy. Success is hard to come buy. Momentum is a huge part of it. If you bring your momentum to a stand still, you are going to have a hard time gearing it up again. Continue to grow. Continue to learn. Be happy with who you are and where you are at, but at the same time, keep discovering what is next.

Not Hustling

I picked up the term “hustle” from Gary Vaynerchuk. He is the host of Wine Library TV and the epitome of a small business owner who knows how to hustle.

To hustle is to work a little harder to get to your goal. Its very important to have it be goal oriented, otherwise there is no point. If you don’t have enough time to do everything you want to do with your business, you need to learn to hustle. Fit some time in here and there to work on your business. Maybe you can get up a little earlier. Maybe you can work an hour after you family goes to bed. Do you really need an hour lunch break? You can cut some things out and fit more in if you try.

Hustling is especially important for the small business owner who is having a hard enough time just keeping up with the daily grind of the business. Find time to work a little harder, but not in the business, on it. In so doing, you may find the answers you need so that you can untie yourself from that daily grind.

Be Not Lazy

Laziness is more than just not working hard. No one would ever accuse you of that, right? But are you pushing the envelope? Are you learning everything you can learn? Are you satisfied with where you are at, or do you still have the hunger? Are you finding the extra time and energy to push yourself and your business closer to your goal?

Laziness is a state of mind. The best way to defeat it is to challenge it head on. Step one is to really evaluate yourself and find out if there are any areas where you have allowed laziness to creep in. Step two is to stop being lazy in those areas.

Always be acting. Action and momentum will get you where you need to go with your business.

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow Bradford on Twitter @bradfordshimp.

Treating every job as a custom order is very time consuming. You want to be flexible to meet client needs, but being overly custom has some serious down sides. Things take longer, there is more room for error, and you may deliver something completely different than what the client had in mind.

In order to avoid the drain of customization, you need to standardize your practices. Having standard offerings can keep things humming along inside your business and help you avoid serious time drain. Its okay to standardize. It means you present a consistent product or service. And yes, its actually easier to customize if you are doing it from a standard base.

Have you ever watched the reality show, American Choppers? They build custom motorcycles. Even though each bike is a serious custom job, they have to adhere to certain standards. Every motorcycle needs certain things to be a motorcycle. They aren’t reinventing the bike. They simply customize the standard each time they build a custom job.

Save Time, and Money!

Every time you customize something, you are going to spend a lot more time, and probably money. You can pass some, but not all, of this on to your client. If you go into every job with no plan and just throw it together, you are far from maximizing your time.

Why should you care about maximizing your time? Because you can take on more work and scale your business better if you learn how to do it.

Start by building out systems for your basic steps. If you always conduct a client interview, put down regular interview questions on paper. If there are basic things you always do when you build a website, write those down. Perhaps you can even create building blocks to help you move a job forward faster. This might be digital templates or pieces of physical products that you always use.

By creating standard systems, you can move a job forward a lot more quickly. You can also avoid unnecessary errors.

Error Heaven

You do you best not to make mistakes. But you are human, after all. When you customize on the fly, it is much easier to make a mistake. Sometimes, you make verbal promises that you forget to write down. Maybe, you make a change but don’t fully realize what impact it will have on the entire job.

The more you customize, the more opportunity there is for things to go wrong. You may catch all of those things before you deliver to your client, but what a time eater!

If you have standards, they help you avoid errors. One great standard is to have a contract for each sale. The contract should list everything that you and your client need to know about the sale. If its not on the contract, its not going to be done. On the other hand, if it is on the contract, you will be sure not to miss it.

Standards also help you to streamline processes and bring others up to speed more quickly. This is especially important when its more than just you working on the job.

Don’t freestyle everything. Creating systems, procedures, and standards can save you a lot of heartburn later on.

Expectations

You may think its a great selling point that you offer customized service based on unique need. And it is, to an extent. However, you also need to be sure to deliver consistently across the board. If your customization leads you into things you are not as proficient in, you could under deliver for the client.

Sometimes, a client comes to you because she has seen your work. In this case, she hires you to do a job, and you deliver a customized solution. Problem is, she really liked how you did it for the other client, and is disappointed to have something different.

Having standards helps you to set expectations. Not only expectations of the end result, but a good handle on the time a job will take, the cost, etc.  If you get too custom, these things can be all over the board, and even you won’t fully grasp them.

Riff the Standard

Okay, here’s the hidden secret about the power of standardization. If you create strong standards, you actually have a better platform to customize from. If you save time and energy on the basic things, you can get your creative on where it will make the most impact.

Don’t be afraid of standards. Use them to help you toward your creative goal. You don’t need to reinvent your process each time you have a new customer. Figure out the best systems for working with a client and use them over and over again. Add your flair on top of that. A great analogy is the cake decorator. Beneath all of his beautiful and unique decorations is the same cake, every time.

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow Bradford on Twitter @bradfordshimp.

I am a huge advocate of picking your customers and choosing not to work with some. But lets face it. Sometimes you just need the sale. So you are forced to pick up a customer who may not be a perfect fit, but you simply need the money.

Lets take a moment to define a customer that you don’t want. There could be a lot of reasons you don’t want a customer. Here’s a few:

• Too big
• Too small
• Too far away
• Too picky
• Takes too long to pay
• Too many people involved
• Too indecisive
• Too impatient

Add your own “too”s to the list. These are all legitimate reasons to avoid working with a customer. But how do you work with them when you can’t avoid it?

Never Show It

Never, ever, let a customer know that you do not want their business once you have it. When they enter your fold as a customer, you must treat them the same as any other customer.

A customer is never a one time anomaly. Sure, you may never want to work with that customer again, but you may want to work with other people or businesses in that customer’s area of influence. You don’t want any customer talking bad about your company if you can help it.

So, be all smiles. Commit to this on a deep level, so that you are really trying, not just pretending. Also, make sure you keep up the strong front inside of your business as well. If employees catch the scent that you don’t want this customer, they are more than capable of making sure you get your wishes.

Go the Extra Mile (Literally if Need Be)

Remember, you are working with this customer because you really need the money. It would be too easy to let your normal customer care slacken. Heck, it would be easy to develop a grudge toward the unwanted customer. So, to combat this, commit to going the extra mile for this customer. Yes, you may be doing that literally if you picked up a customer outside of your normal region.

Instead of hemming and hawing about the extra work you need to go through to keep this customer, look for additional things you can do to make them happy. Make it a game. The goal here is not only to make the customer happy, but to make you happy as well. You can change your attitude about the customer with your mental commitment go above and beyond.

Improve the Customer

There is the possibility that some customers who you didn’t want in the first place could become really good customers. There are some ways that you can improve every customer. You can’t make a small customer bigger, but maybe you can convince them to buy more often. You can’t move a customer who is far away any closer, but maybe you can sell them additional services that don’t cost a lot to deliver.

In the cases of the customers that are just hard to work with, you can improve the relationship by clearly laying out your expectations and explaining your work process. Good communication is often the start of great relationships.

Sometimes, you will have the opportunity to educate the customer and help them improve their business, which will come back to you in increased loyalty and revenue.

Its hard to take on a customer that you don’t want, but you will only make it harder on yourself if you embrace a bad attitude. Go into it with a good outlook, and work to change things for the better. Always remember the three points of value of any customer, which are revenue, referral, and testimonial. You can make a bad situation good if you just try a little. The customer that doesn’t bring in much money themselves may be able to provide you with a great referral or testimonial. The hard to work with customer may turn around with good, honest communication. In the meantime, you do need the money, and you don’t need a chip on your shoulder.

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow Bradford on Twitter @bradfordshimp.

photo credit: Rich Anderson

Have you ever had a sale that just went bad? These are usually horrendous moments that leave you in a state of shock. You really do always try your best for each customer. Sometimes, though, you just mess up, or some part of your process is off. In some cases, its not your fault at all, but it is always your problem.

There are any number of things that can go wrong with a sale. Perhaps the customer expectations were out of whack. Product quality could be the cause. Sometimes, you just screw up and don’t deliver on all of your promises. And yes, once in awhile, you get “THAT customer.”

Misplaced Expectations

Expectations between customer and vendor are very often out of whack. Usually, there is enough grace to compensate for this. Once in awhile, though, things get so off center that it becomes a very real problem.

When the customer expects one thing, but gets something else entirely, he can become very unhappy with you. The first thing you need to do, in any situation where the customer is unhappy, is to appease. See if you can’t make it right. Hopefully you can.

Whether or not you can make it right, you need to evaluate what went wrong in the first place. If expectations where not in line, then it is usually a communication error. Look through your marketing material, talk to your sales person, and look at your notes. Are you bringing a consistent message to each customer? Sometimes the customer mishears things or misinterprets. But the blame for misplaced expectations can usually be placed squarely on your shoulders.

Going forward, you should have a clearer message and consistent training on that message. You should also have standards and procedures for everyone in your business to follow. One of these procedures should be to have a comprehensive and clear contract that lays out all of the expectations for the customer. This will not solve all problems, but it will sure help in lining up your customers expectations with what you actually plan to deliver.

Oh, and if the expectation was not met simply because you failed to deliver on your promises, you need to fix that pronto!

Product Quality

What happens when you deliver a sub-par product? Well, if you do it consistently, you will soon be out of business. But it can happen to anyone, especially if you source your product from a vendor. Lets say that you wholesale colorful socks to small retail stores. You get a bad shipment, but don’t notice. When you sell those socks to your customer, you can be sure that they notice. They call and tell you that your socks have holes in them.

Your response on bad product is very telling. First of all, it doesn’t matter if you think it was your fault, because it is your fault. You are the one who needs to fix it right away with your customers. Don’t wait for your vendor to do something, you can worry about that later. Never pass the blame.

Once you fix the immediate problem, you need to figure out why it occurred and what to do to make sure it never occurs again. Perhaps you need to start checking the product you buy. Maybe you need to have a long talk with your vendor about their quality control. Switching vendors is an option too. Of course, if you make the product yourself, you must go over every part of the process with a fine tooth comb and put procedures and controls in place so that it never happens again.

Forgotten Promises

When you make a promise but don’t keep it, you can expect your customer to get mad. The best way to avoid forgetting anything on a sale is to write it all down in one place, such as a contract. The second thing you can do is to create policies and procedures that have you giving the same service over and over again. They say practice makes perfect.

Take some time to evaluate why you are making extra promises to a customer. Do you feel you need to in order to get the sale? Are you letting the customer bully you around into a half-hearted promise? You need to be the one to decide what you will and will not do. Promises made on the fly are the hardest to keep.

THAT Customer

Okay, so once in awhile you just get stuck with “THAT customer.” These are the complainers, the nit-pickers, the life-suckers. Before we get too excited bashing this type of customer, let me tell you a couple of things. First of all, they are rare. Not every customer complaint you get is from this type of customer. You can’t write off complaints, either, even if they come from a known complainer. Second, you still need to deal with this customer and try to make them happy, at least through the end of the sale. Sometimes, you will actually succeed and turn one of these tough customers into a really good customer. Not usually, but it has been known to happen.

What do you do with the complaints from “THAT customer?” Well, you need to take them with a grain of salt, but still investigate. If they say that someone was rude to them on the phone, talk to that someone. Maybe the person was egged into being rude, but from a business standpoint, there is never any reason to be rude to any customer. This wouldn’t be the time for a reprimand, however. Rather, it will be a good training experience for your employee.

Having a nit-picky customer who is very vocal about all of your faults can be a pain. However, they can be a blessing in disguise, as well. They force you to get all of your ducks in a row and run a professional operation. Unless they just have a grudge against you, you can usually shut these customers up by becoming more professional and handling all of their concerns.

Bad Sales Can Make You Better

Every bad sale is an opportunity to become a better business. When you make a mistake with a customer, you get a black eye in their mind. If you fix the mistake and go out of your way to make it right, that black eye turns into a white hat. Most customers will realize that you are human. If you fix it fast and personally, they will realize that you care.

You need to treat every bad sale as a learning opportunity for you and your employees. Become better. Put things in place to make sure the same mistakes are not repeated over and over again.

It is also very important to accept the blame for the problem. It is never the vendor’s fault or the employee’s fault. It always comes back to you.

With a little effort, you can turn one bad experience into an opportunity to improve. The more you improve, the better you will be!

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow Bradford on Twitter @bradfordshimp.

Not to toot my own horn, but there are thousands of things that I know that you don’t. Not that I’m a know-it-all or anything, its just a simple fact. There is no way that you know all the things that I know. Simply impossible.

Okay, okay, as good as it feels to be able to say that, lets face reality. You can say the same thing about yourself. There are thousands of things you know that I don’t have clue one about. In fact, you can take any two people and be certain that both know things that the other doesn’t.

As a business person, you simply must embrace this fact. There are people who know things you don’t. You’re job isn’t to try to learn all of those things. Instead, it is to tap the knowledge of others for the improvement of your business.

What Other People Know

If there is a secret bit of knowledge needed to be a successful business owner, maybe its this: know how to find the right people. People, as a group, know so much more than you do.  Collectively, the knowledge of the readers of this blog dwarfs my knowledge. Its like comparing the Sun to a speck of dust. Beyond that, specific people have specific knowledge that is way beyond your own in certain areas. For instance, I can design a nice looking website, but my skill is dwarfed both by the graphic designer who is really an artist, and the coder who can make a web site do whatever she wants it to.

The point is, people know a lot. As a business owner, you should tap into this knowledge. Some of the standard people you need include a banker, a lawyer, and an accountant. But the list shouldn’t stop there. Depending on your business, you can benefit greatly from a vast array of specialized knowledge. Your job is to know where your business is going and then finding the right people to help you get there.

I Can Barely Afford Myself

Some businesses just think that they cannot afford people. Its funny, but the best advice for you if you are in this situation might be to hire someone to help you figure out how you can make more money. But, if you are not ready to put down the cash for people right away, start with a little self education. There are plenty of books and websites that can help you out. These will give you a basic knowledge, and will hopefully point you in the right direction. For specific knowledge however, you are going to have to tap people.

Starting off, work on building your network. If you have friends and mentors in business, you can often get some pretty good free advice. That’s a start.

The next step would be to hire experts in pieces. In other words, if you can’t yet hire a full time accountant, perhaps you can bring one in to consult for a specific period of time. Through that consultation, you can have the accountant look at your books, give you some tips, and show you how to better manage your finances (so that eventually you will be able to hire a full time accountant).

After limited-time consultations, the next step in paying for people knowledge is to outsource some work. This is for when you are not ready for full time or don’t need full time. In fact, for some jobs, having someone outside the business doing it may continue to be the best bet for the long term. For instance, you will probably never need to hire a full time landscaper so that you can keep your lawn mowed.

You can outsource almost any kind of work. If you are just starting out, you may want to work with a virtual assistant before you bring in a full time secretary. The professionals I mentioned earlier, banker, lawyer, accountant, are usually outsourced in small businesses. Outsourcing allows you to pay only for the work you need done.

Lots of times, it makes sense to bring in full time help. Employees are hired to get the job done. Sometimes, you don’t even consider their knowledge, and how it will compliment your own. This is, of course, a mistake. You need to hire people for what they know. You can teach people, it is true. But you can only teach them what you know. So, if you hire someone for sales and have to train them, you will only be able to take them as far as your own skills. If you want to hire someone with limited knowledge, make sure that they know how to learn and have a passionate interest in the subject. You may be able to get people cheap this way, but it can hurt you if they can’t learn the stuff.

The safest route is to hire people who already know their stuff. They should be able to teach you. And you should be okay with that. Remember, your skill is finding the right people to accomplish your goals.

What If You Are Super-Skilled

If you started your business based on your skill, you may be having a hard time with all of this. Maybe no one can bake cakes like you. While having a specific skill may be an obstacle to running a business empire, it can usually be overcome. I jest a little there. Go ahead and embrace your skill, especially when you are just starting out and when your business is smaller. As it grows, you will probably have to give something up. Perhaps you won’t be able to work with every customer. Maybe you will want to keep doing the skill work and will have to let someone else take the reins of the business.

Even though you have a super-skill, you still need to tap into what other people know. Maybe I should say especially since you have a super-skill. If you are an expert cake decorator, your business will suffer if you need to spend your time doing the books, or selling, or whatever. Find the people with the knowledge that you don’t have, and plug them in.

More Knowledge Means More Business

Do you have to pay for the best knowledge? Yes, of course you do. So you may have to take it in steps. Start by bringing in the knowledge that will give you the most bang for your buck. But here’s the thing. If you realize that you need a strong team, and start paying for one, your business will benefit.

Bring in the people who will take your business places. Be the person who gets these people together in a room and all focused on one thing, making your business a success. Do this, and you may not be the most knowledgeable person in the room, but you will certainly be the smartest!

photo credit: Ben+Sam

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow Bradford on Twitter @bradfordshimp.