I was at a family party and a show was on the TV that I had never seen before. It was about “expert consultants” coming in and fixing bars.
This lead to a discussion, about how some business owners are their own worst enemy. I explained that I have clients who seeming do nothing but get into their own way. To make it worse they have recommendations to do things better and ignore those recommendations.
One client with whom we no longer work with owed (or probably still owes) a significant amount of back taxes. We prepared a detailed cash flow with a tax payment plan. The client hired us to help them get the back taxes paid, once they saw the sacrifices they would have to make they were not willing to commit. So we no longer work with them. At times I wonder at times if the consequences of their inactions have caught up to them yet?
I am aware of another client who seeming refused to meet with clients at the scheduled times. There were no emergencies that just didn’t seem to be interested in working on the client’s deadline. They never contacted the clients about the delays in their time frame and just frustrated their clients. I am personally aware of the loss of three of their customers because of this lack of follow-up and follow-through.
I have had several clients who needed to hire at least a part-time employees to help facilitate the administrative side of their businesses that just never got around to it. But then there were others who had done so have been able to jump to that next level.
Knowing ones own limitations and short coming allows for the business owner to get the help necessary to cover those areas of weakness and push then push their business to greater heights. Some know when to get out of their own way. But there are others who don’t.