Are You Frustrated by a lack of success?  Do you feel stuck or overwhelmed. 

A common obstacle to success is to cut corners.

Don’t cut corners.  Reading one chapter in a book on a topic won’t give you the education to move ahead. 

Most people will underestimate the time it takes to achieve something of value.

Think about this.

1.  Cutting corners is a sign of impatience and poor self-discipline.

2.  But if you are willing to follow through you can achieve a breakthrough.

3.  The best way to set standards for yourself to succeed is to require accountability.

And here is the KEY.

Accountability must come from the outside.  It can be a small business coach, business advisor or a good associate. 

Accountability from the inside is like do it yourself heart surgery. It is not successful.  Even worse, very often it is fatal.

With outside accountability you will head in the right direction.   Successful small business has outside accountability.

And you have outside accountability you will develop the winning self-discipline to have small business growth and the success you desire now and in the future.

When owning your own business one focus is more small business growth. In an earlier post I talked about the first rule of exceptional customer service, which is to have a good attitude.  A good attitude means having your customer service set up to provide for the needs of your customers, not your needs.  For many that would seem to be obvious.

Rule #2 has to do with your employees or independent contractors if they are to be involved in customer service.  One of the biggest mistakes I see in small business coaching is not giving the very people who can help you with the process of providing exceptional customer service, ownership of how to provide good customer service.

As a result, the customer service department or area bumps along and becomes your negative marketing department. Of course this doesn’t help any one’s attitude or morale.  To get others and you, the small busines owner,  truly involved in providing exceptional customer service you can start practicing with your employees or contractors.

When you do you will have a small business running well and a successful small business for you, your employees and your customers.  And, the satisfaction you will feel from a growing small business will be great.

Instruct them that when they bring you a problem that you also want them to bring three solutions.  If they have two or one, that is okay.  But, ask for three.  Listen to these solutions.  And, more importantly, look for ways to incorporate anything good you hear into the customer service process.  Not only do you start building a sense of ownership but also a sense of team.  Your employees know and feel that we are all in this together.

If you practice having them offer solutions to problems and giving them ownership in the outcome you will start building a customer service department that is on the way to being exceptional and part of your positive marketing department.  When you sow these seeds you will reap small business success and small business growth.