Many business people and indeed would be business people go into business not expecting to fail; yet it would appear from the statistics that many do. How come? What did they do wrong, and why o earth isn’t something being done about it. Well there are of course many reasons, for me as a business consultant I have seen numerous reasons and just a few I would like to outline to you in this article.

Yet like so many things that humans do there will always be an element of human-ness to things they do. In many instances that human-ness is what kills a business. For some it is the ‘I am right’ syndrome, where they can not be told (a little like people who won’t move from their home in a bush fire or flood)

Why did they fail?
For some the answer is simple, it is caused by a single thing not going to plan. There in itself is an answer – having a plan. Many will start with one but it ends up on the shelf next to the procedures manual and is soon forgotten due to the pressure of working in the business and not on it.

For some this comes from the attitude ‘Only I know how to do the job right’ and so their staff that they build up can never match their standards, despite words to the contrary from the boss.

Many will fail due to ignorance, ignorance of customer service basics, and subtleties. Some due to poor marketing, and not getting enough customers through the door. For others it can be a lack of capital to get things properly moving in the first few months.

What should they have done?
It can be too easy to sit back and say ‘a ha’ and measure the who and the ‘why fors’ however for the case of this exercise we will take a simple scenario and see what we come up with.

In all the examples given the answer could be quite simple. Planning. One organisation I know of spends a great deal of time planning. Simply due to the way that there business runs they now spend at least a half day per month planning strategies to give them greater leverage in the market place. Sometimes they spend one day per week on planning and involve some of their staff in meetings that are split up into marketing, operations and management issues so they can take a holistic approach to the business and keep things balanced.

Not everyone will have the luxury of time that this organisation does, yet the organisation started from a one-person operation. How was it achieved? Simple they started having their planning sessions on a weekend or after work. All the issues were worked out and their competition could not catch them in any of the areas they worked on. Creativity of approach was one of the keys that gave them the edge. In time as more staff were required the company put more time into the planning phase and gave the employees responsibility for running the business effectively whilst the planning was taking place. But again this is an extreme and not everyone will be able to, nor wants to, do this much planning. So what is a good plan and how do you stick to it?

Making a plan and stick to it.
This can be an easy task if you have done a few. Some follow the tried and true books that a local library or bookstore will have. In time working on each section to make it work will become quite a chore and so many people abandon these and leave them to gather dust on the shelf. You aim should be to develop a plan that you can work with and that will ensure your staff have a positive direction to follow.

Some will find that the three-pronged approach gives them the lead they want. Marketing – Management – and Operations. From these headings they can get a starting point for each and spend time developing and working a plan to ensure success in each area.

Others will work with their original plan until it is exhausted and then re word it to suit (the magic of computers can allow this to happen with ease these days.)

A method I have worked with as a special alternative, is to explore the Potential – Motivation and Innovation that is taking place in all main areas of a business, perhaps starting with the one causing you the most difficulties. For example customer service. Is there potential to do better at it? Yes… there always will be.

What motivates my staff to be better at it? Is it the lure of more sales? Or is it the satisfaction of doing a job well? Or is it that they are driven by fear, fear that the boss would not be happy if we treated the customer properly.

What about developing an alternative or innovative approach to the situation. In this case service, how would you innovate in this area? Could it be that you will innovate simply by being better at it than your competition? Or could it be a team effort to discover what it is that makes service tick? then how would you implement this to make it work? There are a myriad of approaches that can fit in here. All are simple examples of how P.M.I. can be utilised to develop a plan of action.

Whatever type you choose, have a plan that you can work with and that others can follow, after all you wouldn’t build a house without one, would you?