Pitfalls to avoid when working with others!
One of the most exciting things about being an entrepreneur is being able to run your business your way. Knowing you can rely on your business advisor(s) to offer guidance and leave you to make up your own mind is one of the many reasons you may choose to stick with your preferred supplier(s) year after year. It’s one of the founding principles of Bradley Brown Consulting and is an imperative part of our client relationship which is why our clients stay with us year after year. Unlike other advisers, we provide our clients with a unique blend of business mentoring, coaching, and consulting all in one place.
It’s also one of the many reasons why solo entrepreneurs (aka solopreneurs) stay “business single” deciding to go it alone without the support of a business partner. While this sounds like an ideal situation, as many of you may well know, it requires extreme dedication, a great deal of sacrifice, and can often be a very lonely experience.
It can of course be very rewarding too when things are going well and the money is pouring in.
Nevertheless, for many solopreneurs, finding the right support can be really challenging. Of the many frustrations entrepreneurs encounter, one of the most irritating situations our clients tell us they experience more often than they would like is coercive behaviour from suppliers and/or employees.
In most cases where this situation arises, it becomes quickly apparent that the supplier and/or employee is (perhaps unwittingly) being inappropriately domineering and autocratic, seemingly lacking a sufficient self-awareness to realise their behaviour is unwarranted and unwanted. From some, intruding beyond socially acceptable boundaries and trying to inappropriately impose their own ideas and practices on you has become a bad habit they either are completely oblivious of or have chosen to ignore! Sadly, for others, it’s a conscious decision perhaps driven by a misguided belief that they know best in all circumstances and their way is the only way!
Unfortunately, but probably not surprisingly, this often results in acrimonious dissociation between client and supplier or employer and employee. In this situation, both parties lose out, often having invested too much time and effort in a doomed relationship instead of exiting quickly to focus on more productive activities.
So how can you avoid hiring this type of person in the first place?
One of the common mistakes we’ve observed is not giving the prospective supplier or employee enough space to talk about themselves, their experiences, and their beliefs. Sometimes, as an entrepreneur, you can unwittingly be so keen to impress others and get them to buy you, you can inadvertently forget to ask pertinent questions that give you enough insight to assess someone else's true nature. Consequently, you unwittingly buy into a destructive relationship.
Another, perhaps less common situation, is relying on well-meaning referrals given in haste without consideration for the personalities involved. When a mismatch arises, it’s often more subtle and nuanced. Keen to keep the referrer happy, the supplier or employee may adjust their behaviour early on, misleading and manipulating you into thinking all is well. Over time, however, their true nature wins out and they revert to type, often at an inopportune moment when you’ve already invested significant sums of money and time in something that you later realise is doomed to fail!
If you are currently suffering from any of these frustrations yourself, or have done so in the past, you will know from bitter experience just how damaging it can be to your business success. In many cases, the setback can be so severe it takes years to recover from!
Fortuitously, you don’t have to run your business in isolation to avoid such pariahs. There are many known, tested, and proven ways to overcome this issue and avoid other pitfalls on your entrepreneurial journey, saving you precious time and money. As revealed in some of our case studies, many of our clients have reaped the rewards from working with us, often achieving substantial returns on their investment (ROI)!
Discover how we've helped other clients achieve success by visiting our Case Studies page at https://www.bradley-brown-consulting.com/case-studies
Find out how you can empower your progress with good quality business advice from Bradley Brown Consulting
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