Why Businesses Fail

By Ken Sundheim
To be able to start a business from thin air is quite a hard thing to do. Some can, some cannot. There are a lot variables when it comes to a business succeeding or failing. Below, you will find a list containing the reasons as to why some small businesses fail and what you, the business owner can do to prevent the situations from becoming a problem in the first place.

No Leadership, Employees Get Lazy and Sometimes Insubordinate
As a manager, you should never "manage," unless it comes to a dire situation. Power trips for unintelligent, insecure managers and business owners. Instead, you should be friendly, listen to the ideas the employees have as well as consider them the front line soldiers who know what is going on in the market.

However, some newer, younger employees may see this type lax of attitude and attempt to leverage it in an attempt to firmly establish a "do what I want whenever I want" mentality and atmosphere throughout your company. This can spread like wildfire and it can get out of control very quickly. Upon the first sign that the employees are slacking and not taking their jobs seriously, the manager or business owner must remind them as to why they are paying them the amount that they are being compensated and reiterate as to what kind of productivity and execution is expected.

Good managers and /or business owners lead by example and create a business atmosphere that screams "hard work" and "company dedication." You must create a "produce or don't work here atmosphere" within the organization or your business is being left often to failure.

Not Paying the Employees Enough
To obtain the best employees, one must pay. Your employees are going to be representing your company every time a potential client calls or very time somebody visits the office. These individuals are going to be the face of your creation. Regardless of how impressive you may be, if your employees are not sharp and don't give off an energetic vibe, clients are going to begin shying away and will not take you nor your company seriously.

Additionally, if you are not ready to pay an employee or employees a salary that is very industry competitive, you must do the extra work and continue to put in the 16hour days until you can provide a salary that is conducive to acquiring top notch talent.

Don't misunderstand. This does not mean that you have to save $200,000 for the person, but look at various job boards. What are your competitors paying to bring in new employees? Do you think that they are getting impressive or lackluster talent offering the compensation packages that they are? Always aim higher.

If they are paying them $70,000 a year, budget $85,000. You always want to get employees who are better than the workers whom your opposing firm currently has.

Business owners with big egos don't bring in high returns. Don't just have an employee simply to say you have one. There is no sense in doing this. I know people who have done this and it gets them absolutely nowhere.

Lastly, free employees can quickly bring down a corporate empire. They can bring down the corporate empire that you a very long time to create and bring to life. I've always felt that simply having the thought of obtaining free employees is a little off. Why should somebody work for you for free? Would you work for somebody else for free?

I can see justification that they would do so if you were sharing half of the company revenues with them a.k.a. making them a partner. Otherwise, those employees are going to leave and, upon them going to competitors, they may badmouth you. Therefore a result of you even attempting to obtain free labor, will give your competition free and very useful competitive intelligence on your company. Their obtainment of this information could come from a job posting or your former "gratis" employees potentially bad-mouthing you.
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