Yeah, yeah I know it’s a silly picture. But someone recently told me I needed to use more pictures to grab YOUR attention.  So here we go.

I was working on a presentation earlier today and I was trying to narrow down the common reasons why a lot of small businesses fail.  The one I kept coming back to was that the so-called entrepreneur gets in the way of his/her own success.

Literally it’s like they’re peeing on everything they’ve built.  How do that they do that?  Let’s explore:

1) Failure to Delegate: A lot of small business owners are afraid of delegating because they think if anyone else does the work they’ll get it wrong, the customer will be lost, then the business will die. You’ve either heard it or done it, “Nobody can do this thing as well as I can.” Well, maybe it would be better to break down that task, come up with a system/checklist so any monkey (no offense to all my monkey readers out there) can do it. Why do you want to do everything? Learn to delegate tasks.

2) Failure to Look Around: Being a small business owner can be hectic, crazy, insane, exciting, etc… It’s easy to get so caught up in our daily routine that we fail to look around and A) see what’s going wrong, and B) see how we can improve things. Make it a part of your weekly routine to step back and see what’s working and what’s not. Then, come up with systems that help you fix and improve.

3) Failure to Aim Higher: Success is great. Sometimes continued success can be daunting. I’ve recently talked to some entrepreneurs that are at the point where they need to take their business to the next level…but they’re scared. They’re scared of hiring employees, scared of increased inventory, scared of more time, scared of everything.  Don’t let your fears keep you from growing. Build your business incrementally and take baby steps. Nobody says you have to be the next Apple tomorrow.

So again, don’t pee on everything you worked so hard to build. Make sure you aren’t getting in the way of your business’s success.  Take a systematic approach, get outside help and push on through. And use the restroom before you leave…

Originally posted on Carlos Cooper's "A Swift Kick" Blog