First you have to start

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"No one aims for average.  No one sets out for status quo.  No one longs for ordinary.  But one day you wake up and ask yourself, How did I get here?"  These are the words on the inside flyleaf of Jon Acuff's book Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters.  They are words that many of us have said and might even be saying now.  We say them when we hit those transitions times in our lives.  We say them again when we wake up one day and realize that it is going to be like every other recent day, and we're just not sure we can take it anymore.  We repeat them when something triggers thoughts of unrealized dreams, and we wonder if it's now too late to make them a reality.

Most people intend to do something significant with their lives.  I doubt that there is anyone who hasn't had big dreams and had every intention of fulfilling them sometime.  Of course, that is the key word here isn't it: sometime.  Too many of us are content to live on Someday Isle.  Someday I'll start that business I always wanted to own.  Someday I'll complete that degree.  Someday I'll spend more time with our children.  Someday I'll get serious about getting our finances right.  Someday I'll focus more on exercise and healthy eating.  Someday I'll....

The problem is someday never comes, and one day we realize that the opportunities to do those things we dreamed about are behind us.  In his book, Acuff writes that fear is one of the primary reasons we don't seek to live out our dreams.  We are afraid of the unknown.  We are afraid of failure.  We are afraid of what others might think or say.  Some may even be afraid of success.  Until we address the fears that hold us back we will never live up to our capabilities or achieve the things we've dreamed of achieving.  We have to stop listening to those voices within and without that creates fear.  Acuff provides several specific things we can do to overcome that fear and move on with our lives.

Fear is what keeps people from starting that small business they've wanted to own.  For owners of small businesses, fear is what keeps them from taking it to higher levels.  We settle for normal because normal pays the bills and provides us with a regular income.  We don't want to risk that by trying to grow our business so we settle.  But, while we're settling we're also stewing inside because we know we could be doing so much more. 

I spend a lot of time working with church leaders, and many of them have settled for the ordinary as well.  In fact, it's safe to say that some have just given up.  They have been beaten down so often by having their ideas rejected by small minded people with big pocketbooks they've stopped dreaming.  They make no effort to lead their churches any more; they're content to just manage what they've got.  They have forfeited their role as prophet and leader and settle for becoming a chaplain.  In some cases, they are hospice chaplains providing care for a dying institution.

Life is too short to do work that doesn't matter.  Life is meant to be lived with purpose, and part of that purpose is to follow your dreams and to achieve everything you were created to achieve.  To do so will require some determination on your part and a plan.  Acuff's book can help you identify a plan.  After all, if you want to accomplish something the first thing you have to do is  Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters.

The rise and fall of a small business

Approximately 20 years ago a relative passed away and we assumed ownership of a small business he owned.  Even though we received offers from individuals interested in purchasing the business I decided to keep it.  It had a long history in our community, was profitable, and had great employees who wanted to remain.  Like many Americans I had long desired to own my own business, and this looked like the perfect opportunity.  The problem was I had no experience as a business owner nor did I understand the technology of the business.  Due to the experience of our employees I knew the tech part would be covered, and I felt I could learn the nuts and bolts of running a small business.

The first several years it was everything I had hoped it would be.  Sales were good, profits were solid, we were banking money and moving forward very well.  I made management mistakes during that time, but our level of profitability enabled us to cover those. However, when the economy began to weaken our sales slowed down dramatically.  Our clients would have us repair equipment that normally would have been replaced in an effort to protect their finances.  We started going through our savings rather quickly to cover costs.  Year after year we lost money.  I stopped taking a salary hoping that would allow us to survive the economic recession, but no one understood just how deep this recession was at that time or how long it would take to recover.  My inexperience led to more mistakes which cost us more money, money we could no longer afford to lose.  Although I learned from those mistakes they were costly to the business.

Many small businesses have failed during this recession, and most will blame those failures on the economy.  While there may be a measure of truth in that it is also true that many small businesses continue to do well during this downturn.  It is also true that businesses fail during more prosperous times.  It is not the economy that is solely at fault for the failure of small businesses, it is how those businesses are managed during those times that make the difference.  Good economic times will cover up a lot of management mistakes, but slow economic times magnify the mistakes we make in leading our businesses and make those mistakes much more costly to the company.

I learned a lot about leading a small business from the mistakes I made and from resources I began to gather about leadership and small businesses.  Unfortunately, I did not learn them in time to save our company.  It eventually closed.  All the hard assets and our property were sold at auction for pennies on the dollar.  Fortunately, we made enough to pay off all our bills but there was precious little beyond that to show for 15 years of running a small business.  The first few years of owning our business was a dream come true; the last few years was a nightmare trying to find ways to keep it open.  It was an especially painful time for me in many ways.

Coming out of that experience I decided to write a book that would help other small business owners avoid the mistakes I made that could cost them their business.  Because the experience was so recent and painful it did not take a long time to write this particular book, certainly not as long as the other books I've written relating to pastoral ministry.  Mistakes: Avoiding the Wrong Decisions that will Close Your Small Business is available for NOOK devices.  In the book I detail several of the decisions that I made for our company that turned out to be wrong and led to its downfall.  If you avoided even just one of the mistakes I discuss in the book it could save your company thousands of dollars.

Avoid the nightmare of seeing your small business close.  Don't spend sleepless nights wondering if the decisions you need to make are the right ones.  Avoid having to tell long-time employees they no longer have a job due to your closing the company.  Do not live through the horror of watching others drive off with your inventory and equipment after an auction leaving you with bills to pay with no money coming in.  Learn from my mistakes and you may avoid making them yourself. 

Who is really to blame when a business goes under?

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We owned and operated a small family business for fifteen years until we were forced to close it.  The last few years the company was not profitable, and it was a struggle to keep it open.  We continued to think things would turn around as they had during previous downturns, but that time we just could not turn the corner.  After an auction we had enough money to pay our creditors.  We were lucky.  Many who lose their companies are forced into bankruptcy, lose their homes, have their credit destroyed, and/or deplete their life savings.

The news continues to be full of stories of small businesses failing, and the owners point their fingers at a lot of causes.  The economy is bad, taxes are too high, there is too much governmental red tape, Obamacare, inability to compete with foreign-made goods, fiscal cliff uncertainty, too much competition especially with the big box stores, dishonest employees,, and a rapidly changing environment.  Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of reasons why businesses fail.

Each of these are a severe hindrance on small businesses, but are they really the reasons why a business fails?  The fact is that businesses fail in a good economy, and many small businesses continue to do well in our present economic downturn.  I agree that taxes are too high, but they are basically the same for every business, and some seem to prosper despite high taxes.  Every one of these reasons are a challenge, but some small businesses are able to meet those challenges and do well while others end up closing their doors.  The real reason a small business fails isn't due to outside challenges; the real reason is internal.  The owners failed to make the decisions that were needed for the company to prosper despite the challenges it faced.  In a good economy our mistakes don't hurt us too badly, but in a poor economy our mistakes cause us major problems.

When our business was struggling I blamed a number of issues that were all true, but each of them were outside my control.  It wasn't until later I realized that the real reason our company closed was because I failed as a leader to make sound business decisions and operate the company in a way that would ensure its profitability.  I could write a book about all the mistakes I made as the president of our business.  In fact, I did.  It's called Mistakes: Avoiding the Wrong Decisions That Will Close Your Small Business.  For thirteen chapters I describe in detail the mistakes I made that led to the closing of our business.  In each of those chapters I also describe the lessons I learned that, if they had been applied at the time, would have led to better decisions on my part.

Success and failure are both inside jobs.  You can't depend on Washington to bail out your small business.  That is not going to happen.  You can't even depend on them to not do something stupid that will add even more risk to your business.  The big box stores are not going away.  Taxes are not going to go down; in fact, it is likely they will continue to go up because Washington is convinced we are not yet paying enough to fund their programs.  If you want to ensure your company's success you have to work smarter, and one way to do that is to learn from the mistakes of others. 

That's why I wrote this book.  I want to help others avoid the mistakes I made so their businesses don't fail.  If you started your company it was because of a dream you had.  Perhaps you are now the head of a business that has been passed down from other generations, and you want to keep their dreams alive.  I believe this book will help that happen.  It is currently only available on NOOK devices and can be ordered here.

Leadership failure

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My last post looked at the importance of character in a leader's life.  I want to continue that thought today by looking at how a lack of character caused well known leaders to fail.  These character flaws were not morality issues, but they were character issues all the same.  There are four primary areas of leadership in which many leaders fail to exercise character: authenticity, self-management, humility, and courage.  Tim Irwin, in his excellent book Derailed: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership (NelsonFree), addresses these in detail and looks at the failures of well known leaders such as Robert Nardelli, Carly Fiorina, Durk Jager, Steven Heyer, Frank Raines, and Dick Fuld as examples of how these leaders failed as a result of one of those four character issues.  It is a sobering book as one realizes how, if these leaders at the top of their game, could fail it is very arrogant of us to believe it could never happen to us.

Irwin explains that derailment doesn't happen all at once.  It's a process that involves making one wrong decision after another.  It may be that one's arrogance prevents him from listening to the warnings of others.  It may be that a leader lacked courage to make a critical decision.  The problem could be that team members saw a lack of authenticity in their leader and refused to follow her.  Anyone can have an off day without it resulting in failure, but when such character issues are dominent in a leader's life it is almost a certainity that failure will eventually occur.

To counteract the possibility of such failure Irwin recommends five habits of the heart.  They are

1. The habit of openness - A willingness to receive feedback from others
2. The habit of self-other/awareness - An examination of one's strengths and weaknesses
3. The habit of listening to early warning systems - Paying attention to the stresses in your company
4. The habit of accountability - A willingness to be accountable to others for our actions
5. The habit of reliliency - The ability to bounce back from adversity

Each of these habits are critical to the success of entrepreneurs and small business owners.  Lacking any of them can lead to failure as Irwin demonstrates by studying the failures of the business leaders mentioned above.  If these individuals can fail due to a lack of character, so can any of us.  A habit is something that is developed by consistently and intentionally focusing on something.  It is not something we can do once, cross off our to-do list, and move on.  We must examine our actions, our attitudes, and our words on a continual basis to ensure that we are developing each of these five habits.  To learn more about how these other leaders failed and how to develop these five habits in your life you should read Irwin's book.

Avoiding the mistakes

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Few things in my life have been more painful to me than when we closed our small business.  For 15 years I had managed our family owned heating and air conditioning business until we were forced to close it.  I had resisted making that decision for several years but just wasn't able to turn it around to its former profitability.  We closed it down and sold everything at auction.  Inventory and equipment went for pennies on the dollar.  

The day of the auction was one of the worst days of my life because I knew that I was the primary cause of it.  Our dream of owning a business had turned into a nightmare because of numerous mistakes I made.  Within days of the auction I began writing a book on the experience called Mistakes: Avoiding the Wrong Decisions That Will Close Your Small Business.  I had learned a lot about how to manage a small business, but I learned it too late to save ours.  I felt like if I honestly told of the mistakes I had made and what I had learned from them it might help other small business owners avoid making the same mistakes.  It is far better to learn from the mistakes of others than from making them yourself.

Although I have published several books I could not interest a publisher in this one.  I think I know why.  Walk into any bookstore and check out the books in the business section and see how many of them address mistakes.  You would think from reading the titles of the books you find on most of those shelves that all you have to do is open for business and you can start making plans for your next Mediterranean vacation.  Publishers like happy, positive books.  They don't like books that explain how the author messed up and lost a business due to his stupidity.

Actually, I think my book is a positive book.  It gives positive advice on how to lead and manage a small business well.  It points out possible issues that can create problems, but after doing so give the reader good advice on how to avoid those issues.  That's positive.  It's also more realistic than what some of the business books I've read.  No small business owner will avoid all mistakes, but he or she can miss several of them if they know to expect them and if they have some idea of what to do when they do happen.  I think this book provides that which is why I decided I would release this book as an e-book on NOOK.

For over three decades I have been a minister.  Twenty of those years I served as a pastor and for the past 12 years I've been a denominational leader.  At heart I am a teacher, and this book will teach you about potential problem areas you may encounter in your business and how to address them in a constructive way.  My interest in teaching is also why I created this website and why I publish so many articles on small business leadership, entrepreneurship, and sound decision making.  I would encourage you to follow my blog as well as the articles I copy each day on Twitter and Facebook.  Every article I share may not interest you, but I bet some of them will.  If you get even a nugget from reading one of the posts it can prove to be a major contributor to your well-being.

By making the book available on NOOK devices I've been able to make it immediately available to you and to sell it for much less than what a publisher would charge for it.  I encourage you to purchase it.  I also invite you to be my friend on Facebook and follow me on Twitter to see the numerous articles I post nearly every day.  If you have questions you would like me to address please let me know, and I'll try to incorporate the answers in future posts.

Failure is an event

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Several years ago I heard Zig Ziglar say at a conference, "Failure is an event, not a person.  Yesterday ended last night and today is a brand new day."  I have used that truth as I've coached people who felt like they were failures because something they tried didn't work out very well.  I've used it in some of my sermons as I was trying to instill hope in people who may have felt they had made too many wrong choices in their lives.  I've also had opportunities to remind myself of this truth when I've been tempted to get down on myself.

Anyone who attempts to do something will fail at times.  We may think we've thought through every possible situation, but suddently something happens that we never anticipated and we find ourselves battling yet another set back.  Sometimes the failure is rather small and except for the embarrassment there is little impact.  Other times the failure comes with a lot of zeros at the end, and some of these can be very harmful to the future success of our business.  But, the road to success is full of potholes marked failure.  Many successful entrepreneurs tell us that until we have experienced enough failures we will never be successful.

Most successful people I know will tell you the secret of their success is experience, and the way to gain experience is to fail and fail often.  The key here though is to learn something from the failure.  I once read a chapter in a book titled "Never waste a good crisis."  The idea behind that chapter was that if we were going to go through a crisis anyway we should learn all we could from it.  I thought it was good advice when I read it and still do.  The best book I've ever read on failure comes from John Maxwell titled Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success.  Maxwell also promotes a positive view of failure and challenges his readers to use every failure as one more step to achieving the success they want.

However, to be able to do that requires that we learn from our mistakes.  It's OK to make mistakes; it's not OK to keep making the same mistakes.  When we find we have failed at some endeavor we need to take time to analyze why we failed and determine what we could have done differently that would have led to a better outcome.  Only when we do that will we be able to apply that learning to the next similar situation that comes our way.

You may want to have a coach help you with this analysis.  Sometimes it's hard for us to be objective about our own mistakes.  We may either go too easy on ourselves or too hard.  Having an outside person who can take an objective approach to our failures can be a valuable asset to our personal growth.  I've been privileged to serve as a coach for a number of people and currently have a few open slots for two or three more.  If you believe having a coach could help you work through some of the issues you are facing feel free to contact me.  Just respond to this post with your email address, and I'll be glad to get back to you.

Learning from the failure of others

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Some of the cheapest lessons small business owners can learn come from the mistakes of other people in leadership positions.  Even CEOs of major corporations can make mistakes despite all the resources at their disposal.  Tim Irwin, in his book Derailed: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership (NelsonFree), profiles six CEOs of major corporations who derailed in their leadership and ended up being removed from their positions.  These were very sharp people who made some serious misjudgements that cost their companies great sums of money and eventually cost them their jobs.  The one thing their failures had in common is that they came about because of a failure of character.  Irwin points out that it was not a character issue such as dishonesty but of being dismissive of others and hubris.  Their stories make interesting reading of how really sharp people can take the wrong road in their leadership and derail.  The second half of the book warns the reader how easily we can take the same wrong turns and how to avoid them.

One of the lessons Irwin points out is that "Derailment occurs over time - it really happens before the crash.  An ignored warning signal...the inattention to feedback, and one wrong turn leads to another."  I can relate to that because that is exactly what happened to me.  I failed to pay attention to the warning signals that could have helped me avoid having to close our business.  Too often, we think that failure is an event that happens, but failure is really the end result of a long list of issues we ignore over a period of time.

Another lesson we should take from this book is that most derailments are self-inflicted.  As I point out in my book Mistakes we can't blame anyone or anything but ourselves for our failures.  If your business fails you can't blame the economy unless every business failed.  We can't blame government because government never bailed out any small business.  It's not high interest rates, customers who won't pay their bills on time, the price of gasoline, or any other excuse people often give when a business fails.  While that business is failing thousands of others are prospering under the same conditions.  None of these things may have helped our situation, but the problems we are facing are nearly always due to our own decisions and habits.

As the author wraps the book up he points out that "While competence is absolutely essential, our character ultimately makes a greater impact on what we accomplish in our work and in our lives.  Character as expressed in authenticity, wisdom, humility, and courage must ultimately form the substance of who we are if we want to have great impact."  He ends the book by listing five critical habits every small business owner must develop to avoid derailment.

It is fascinating to read how six corporate giants could make such huge mistakes in their leadership, but it is humbling to realize how many of them we make in our own leadership.  This book provides you with an excellent opportunity to learn from the mistakes of other leaders so you might avoid them in your own business, and for the price of the book that is pretty cheap learning.