20 Ways to Kill Your Business: Lessons learned from 40 years of Entrepreneurship

Don't make these mistakes that can kill a business!

Are you having issues with your business? Or, do you want to avoid pitfalls that can ruin your business?

Learn from someone who has made the mistakes you want to avoid. See the inside reasons why these 20 things can ruin a business and keep it from being more successful.

As an entrepreneur that has worked at businesses for 40 years, I have had my share of failures. Each time I failed, I looked to see what it was that caused me to fail. Each time, I found some little “nugget” that I could take with me to the next effort to help me avoid failure in the next. This book is made up of a number of the lessons I learned during all this time in business. My hope is that you’ll avoid these pitfalls and be more successful as a result.

Just because I know how to fail at business, it does not necessarily mean that I am a failure at business myself. I’m an entrepreneur. I think I have always been an entrepreneur. The idea of making or obtaining something and selling it to someone else in a way that makes them happy and makes me money is something I’ve been utilizing since elementary school. I have tried in probably a hundred ways to make money and help people. Some worked quite well, some not so well. Some lasted a while, others only a few days. Some never got off the ground.

Each and every time I tried something, I have been able to look back and analyze that situation and learn from it. I don’t know why, but I have been blessed with a fantastic memory of the past. Not an identic or photographic memory, just a good memory of things said, actions taken, interactions with people, and a lot of visual memories. It is a blessing to be able to look back at these times and think about every move, every nuance, every person involved, and I try to see why things worked out or didn’t work out. These are the lessons I’ve learned from all these efforts.

By reading this book, it is my belief, that if you avoid all the pitfalls that are listed here, you will be able to be successful in the business you choose. Of course there no guarantees and your success will still depend on what you choose and how hard you work. But these guidelines of what NOT to do will keep you from making a lot of mistakes.

Table of Contents

Chapter/Title

1.Limit Yourself to Just One Customer
2.Make Sure to Have Limited Materials Available
3.Take Your Cut Off of the Top
4.Don’t Try It If No One Else Is Doing It Already
5.Do Not Advertise Your Products
6.Always Trust Everyone, Especially Yourself
7.Work Doing Something You Hate to Do
8.If You Can, Just Work for Your Parents
9.Believe Everything You Are Told
10.Give Up Before You Have A Chance To Make It Work
11.Listen to That ONE Naysayer
12.Don’t Do the Math
13.Over Diversify Your Business
14.Grow Too Fast
15.Believe “If They Can Do It, You Can Do It!”
16.Don’t Try New Things
17.When Things Get Tough, Jump Ship
18.Stay out of reach of your customers
19.Don’t stand behind your products
20.Treat your customers like enemies