Small Business: Learning to grow

Business owners can be very myopic.

They're so busy running their business that sometimes they don't recognize their own shortcomings.

Making sure your business is running up to speed takes constant work, and even the best-run businesses may have some shortfalls without even recognizing them, say experts.

"Business owners often unwittingly become the constraint to growth in their own businesses," says Polly White, co-author of  "Let Go to Grow" (Palari Publishing; $24.95) and co-founder of Whitestone Partners Inc., a Midlothian, Va., management consultancy.

Some get accustomed to doing things the same way or become too close to the situation to implement changes. Taking a step back or seeking advice may help you avoid some of these more common mistakes:

1. Not having the right expertise. So you want to be an entrepreneur, but you don't have all the skills to grow or sustain your business, says White. There are a few solutions, said her husband, Doug White, co-author of "Let Go" and co-founder of Whitestone. These include getting a coach, partnering with someone who has the skills you're lacking or bringing in an outside firm to fill in the gaps, he says.

2. Poor hiring and managing. Your employees are the lifeblood of your business, says Polly. But companies often hire the wrong people and then don't do a good job of managing them, she notes. "We say hire behaviors and train skills," notes Doug. Decide what behaviors make for successful employees in an organization and find people with those kinds of behaviors, he notes. When you find the right people, set goals for them and hold them accountable for reaching those goals, adds Polly.

3. Indifferent customer service. Companies can often lose touch with customers without recognizing it, says Thomas Shinick, a professor of entrepreneurship and small business at Adelphi University and president of Corporate Development Partners, Merrick business advisers. "Customer service is oftentimes relegated to policies and procedures," he notes. Companies that listen to their customers and go beyond the standard excel, he says.

4. Becoming stagnant. Good companies reinvent 10 percent of their business each year with new ideas, markets and products, says Shinick. "You want to create a fresh view of the company all the time."

5. No business plan or an outdated one. If you don't have a business plan, get one, says Alicia Smith, a Bozeman, Mont., business expert. And if you do have one, it's not a bad idea to revamp it every so often, notes Marvin Soskil, president of Brett Harrison Jewelers, a Melville personal jewelry shopper. The changing economy and tighter discretionary income forced Soskil to look at his business a bit differently.

Working with business coach Pete Cracovaner of Pinnacle Resource Group in Rockville Centre in conjunction with Basso on Business, a monthly webcast that helps businesses uncover their challenges, he decided to expand his market reach beyond his traditional middle-class clientele to high-net-worth individuals and young professionals he could also mentor.

"I'm constantly reinventing as the economy and the market changes," says Soskil, adding he's also in negotiation with major league baseball for a joint venture to sell jewelry to the fans. He didn't disclose further details.

6. No ways to monitor progress. "You can't manage what you cannot monitor or measure," says Smith, who offers more tips at 90daymarketingmarathon.com. Every business needs to identify its key success factors (i.e. number of products sold, number of service hours provided), she notes. That way you can identify what's working and what's not and make improvements to maximize your chances of success.