Top 10 Reasons Why Businesses Slowly Fail

Think about the small businesses in your town. How many can you recall that opened and then shut down years later? My guess is a lot.

I personally live and work in downtown Danville, California. It’s a quaint little town jam-packed with small businesses.

Primarily…

• Women and Men’s clothing stores. (Danville is ranked #1 in the country for annual clothing expenditures per capita.)
• Restaurants
• Bars

And before I reveal the top 10 reasons why businesses s l o w l y fail, I want to bring something up about these Danville businesses…

1. They sell products and services that most people WANT.
2. They sell products and services that most people want and buy OFTEN.
3. They can reinvent their product/service version and experience at virtually ANYTIME (If they wanted to).

That’s why you would think that the above business categories would be the easiest to succeed in—even easier than running a successful Chiropractic office.

But they are not.

It’s not because succeeding in business is difficult.

Rather, most business owners think and act inaccurately about themselves, their business, and the marketplace…and that’s why success eludes them.

There are successful businesses in every category.

But most will fail and most fail slowly.

Here’s why…

1. Low perceived value. Customers feel short changed.
2. No or not enough ongoing value added daily communication (daily or at least 5 days a week).
3. They ignore customers before, during, and after the sale.
4. Not enough “feel good” experiences both literally and figuratively… before, during, and after the sale.
5. Low “nice” factor. Customers judge a business by the least “nice” person associated with the business.
6. No product/experience consistency.
7. Not enough money reinvested into the business for business improvements and marketing.
8. Not #1 in it’s category and/or marketplace. If you are not #1, your business will slowly fail. You must be #1.
9. Low “convenience” factor. Every aspect of the experience before, during, and after the sale must be easy to access, consume, and understand.
10. Incompetency.
11. Dilution. If everyone is your market, then no one is your market. Failing business owners often make the mistake of trying to be all things to all people.

Everything above can slowly kill retention, repeat business, and referrals.

How do you succeed in business?

Just do the opposite.