Real Estate Journal — Owners, Developers & Managers — September 26 - October 9, 2014 — 5B
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B uilding S ervices & S uppliers By Glenn Ebersole, Hollenbach Construction, Inc. Twelve causes for small business failures
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ver thepastmanyyears I havemet or have been contacted by someone
lack of adequate startup capital that has not included enough money to live for one or two years without income when get- ting the business started. 3. No prior business experi- ence - The lack of experience running a business or in the industry entered. 4. Ineffective marketing – The lack of a strategic Integrat- ed Marketing Communications (IMC) Plan. 5. Competition – The lack of understanding of whom the competition is and what their strengths and weaknesses are. 6. Poor customer service –
The lack of commitment to first class and reliable service to customers. 7. Poor record keeping and financial controls – The lack of up-to-date, well documented financial and business records. 8. Limited product, services and/or clients. – Small business owners fall prey to clinging to one big client, one product or one service, rather than a va- riety and diversification, which serves as a risk management too against the ups and downs of business cycles. 9. Opportunistic market- ing only – Entrepreneurs often
get excited over any new op- portunity and start pursuing a new opportunity without using strategic thinking to test the opportunity against the vision, mission and goals of the strate- gic business plan. 10. Poor time management –Lack of discipline and commit- ment to do tasks that need to be done on time. 11. Poor quality – Lack of a standard for quality of products and services. 12. Burnout – Owning a business with a significant in- vestment of time,money, energy and emotion results in working
long days and not taking time off. Andnot balancing your busi- ness life and your personal life will cause burnout and cause your motivation and creativity to suffer. In reviewing the above list, do you recognize any of these causes for failure becoming ap- parent in your business? If you answered YES, you may have activatedawarning systemindi- cating a need to determine why your business isnot growingand thriving. If you have detected a warning sign of potential failure in your business or organization the time to act is NOW! n
who wants to start his or her own busi- ness. Typical- ly the person has specific skills and ex- perience in a specific indus- try, but lacks
Glenn Ebersole
business management experi- ence and self-employment expe- rience. Thevastmajorityof them are in fact totally naïve about how business really works. The failure rate for small busi- ness is the subject of much dis- cussion. Frankly speaking, there aremanymyths andhalf-truths about small business failure rates due to the absence of solid reliable statistical evidence. In researching the failure rate of small businesses, I went to the SBA (Small Business Admin- istration) Office of Advocacy at www.sba.gov/advo and found that of the small businesses started in 2000 – 69% survived at least 2 years; 51% survived at least 5 or more years; 34% survived 10 years or more and 26% survived 15 years or more. Based upon my research, personal observations and busi- ness experiences as a former business owner, here are twelve (12) causes for small business failures. 1. Poor planning - The lack of a strategic business plan to help focus on vision, mission and goals. 2. Inadequate capital - The Gillis Gilkerson completes 12,000 s/f roof demolition/ installation SALISBURY, MD — Gil- lis Gilkerson , a contracting and construction management firms on Delmarva, announced the completion of a new roof installation on AllenMemorial Baptist Church at 1303 Snow Hill Rd. in Salisbury. The project included a 12,000 s/f roof replacement to correct an already existing leaky roof. Work included the demolition of existing roof materials down to the deck and the installation of new insulated panels and roof shin- gles. The team also replaced interior drywall and painted where damage was caused by numerous leaks. n
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