Why People Fail In Business

Today’s post is one of those topics that I deal with on a regular basis but usually to myself… Until something pushes me to the edge and I have to get on my ‘soap box’ to relieve the built up frustration and annoyance I feel BECAUSE it’s preventable.

This week, I overheard someone at the dentist office say “A friend of mine has dentures and she says they’re really good… So why don’t you just pull out my teeth and give me dentures?”

Now you need to know the context of this statement – this is a patient with severe dental problems. He’s going to have at least 5 teeth pulled due to long-term, extreme neglect and decay.

But the point I’m trying to make is…

If you ask someone who is wheelchair bound about the latest and greatest wheelchair on the market that is mobile, comfortable and repair-free, they will only give you great recommendations about that wheelchair.

But if you ask them if they would like to walk INSTEAD… You’ll get a completely different answer.

So what’s my point?

If a dental patient hangs around people who get their teeth pulled instead of having good oral hygiene and proper dental treatment, the recommendations and advice he/she will get won’t help him/her get the answers he/she needs.

“The thinking that caused your problem
is not the thinking that will solve it.” – Dr Albert Einstein

What this means is that if you are a small business owner and you hang out with other struggling SME business owners, you are simply not going to get the answers you need to solve the problems you’re faced with.

The problem and my frustration is that ‘these people’ have no clue that their thinking is constricted.

It’s called a bounded rationality envelope – a sophisticated concept I teach my elite Platinum Program Members…

Simply put, these small business people are oblivious to the options available to them. They not only NOT see the forest for the trees, they don’t see any trees AT ALL.

That’s why it’s no aggravating for me as an Exponential Growth Strategist.

I am like the dentist with a patient who has 3/4 of his teeth that can be repaired, but his mindset/thinking/paradigm is self-destructive – he/she wants to EXTRACT/PULL the teeth instead of save them.

I see it with some small business people.

• They won’t invest their time and money in legitimate programs, instead attending FREE salesfest events filled with a sales pitch every hour on the hour.
• They believe read the Internet Marketing spruiker emails and sales pages that profess they’ll become the next Information product millionaire making money in their  underpants while sleeping as their online money making machine runs on auto-pilot.
• They are unwilling to make the commitment, sacrifice or investment required. If success was quick and easy, everyone who be financially independent, successful, happy and healthy.

How do you tell a 300-pound nutritionist she’s not going to be successful in business?

It’s blatantly obvious to you and me, but if she can’t see the idiocy of that proposition – there’s nothing that can help her.

I know you think this is an EXTREME example, but let’s face it…

If a nutritionist is just a ‘little’ fat, pudgy, only has one extra chin, flabby arms that jiggle just a little too much when she waives her arms… Are you going to believe her and choose her to be your or your family’s nutrition expert?

That’s my point.

Every day people are making snap judgments about everyone and everything around them.

That’s why your public persona is so important.

I recently met a restaurant owner who has the most inappropriate name for his restaurant.

He changed his mind about the food he wanted to sell, changed the entire menu, but kept the OLD name.

The name relates to desserts but it’s now a pizza place.

Apparently the pizza’s great, but he now has an EMPTY PIZZA restaurant.

Here’s the thing – he knows the name sucks, but he keeps it.

(Analogy, he’s the 300-pound nutritionist who doesn’t want to lose weight).

His business will become another failed business statistic.

What the statistics don’t reveal is:

It’s totally deserved – yet totally preventable.