Although experience is the best teacher, I believe that most established business owners would want new business owners to avoid falling into the traps that can appear on the way to business success. I am confident you will avoid some of my mistakes, twenty of which I’ve gathered in a series of articles; this column includes the first seven. I will certainly confess to having made them to some extent-but most of us do as we work hard to achieve our goals and succeed.
After I opened a commercial school, I became aware that being an entrepreneur and being in business are not the same. In the words of E-Myth founder Michael Gerber, I was “a technician having an entrepreneurial seizure.” Most of us are martial artists first and business owners second. I sometimes think it would be better if it were the other way around!
Mistake #1
In my case, I had already operated a university club, but then moved off-campus because of university building renovations. Since I already ran a successful club on campus, I reasoned that it couldn’t be that much harder to run a small business off campus. This was my first mistake.
Mistake #2
Once I started moving up the business-learning curve, I quickly made the second mistake. I found myself caught in a juggling act that sapped my time and energy, and created the opportunity for a dazzling array of mistakes from which to learn.
As a technician, I already knew the martial arts, but did not know how to conduct the business part of the process, which meant that I spent more time doing the “business” than was required for the health of my business. I had a vision for my business when I opened it, but it’s easy to lose sight of the vision when you’re in the trenches doing the work and not refining that vision on a regular basis.
Mistake #3
This created the opportunity for my third mistake, namely, failing to learn the real message behind each mistake the first time.
Mistake #4
I tend to be self-reliant and self-motivated. I tend to believe that I can do anything. Maybe I’m a Black Belt, but I am not a Black Belt marketer, manager, accountant and child therapist. I need help, and sometimes fail to ask for it. A word to the wise: Outsource! I outsource my accounting, printing, marketing and information technology.
Mistake #5
Inability to delegate. In other words, thinking, “No one can do it as well as me.” Enough said.
Mistake #6
Micro-managing your instructors and staff: see Mistake #2.
Mistake #7
Being unwilling to change; becoming trapped by traditions that have little or no meaning to our clients or to the development of a successful business. Our ranking process, syllabi and rituals can be obstacles to business success.
I have had the opportunity to be trained by some outstandingly gifted instructors during the years, but some of those very same people unwittingly created challenges for my business because they didn’t understand the dynamics of “running a business.” This is not to criticize them, it is merely a statement of the obvious: Our mentors are not all knowing in all areas of our development, and it is wrong of us to think that they are.
