Pride Goes Before the Fall: How This Deadly Sin Can Ruin Your Small BusinessSmall Business Service ConsultantsUpdated on Nov 18, 2011 View more like this | Visit FRISCO, TX | Contact CCG & Associates Consulting, LLC. |
Too much of anything can be a bad thing, and pride in your work is no exception. The same way that pride can be a killer in your personal life, it can affect the success of your small business as well, in much the same ways. People that become too proud can close off their minds, believing their methods to be the best way to do things in every case. They can become careless and rest on their laurels, and dismissive of new threats and developments. They can refuse to ask for help when it would be the best thing in the world for them. These traits can cripple a new small business just the same as the can cripple an individual.
The first thing to address is the refusal to listen to new ideas. While it may seem obvious, small businesses thrive on being mobile, adaptable, and more nimble than their larger competitors. By not embracing innovation due to the belief that you’ve got everything already figured out, you take away the largest advantage of the small business, and more likely than not will get left in the dust as other companies fill in the void that you’ve allowed to form.
Close behind the development of stubbornness and becoming stuck in your ways is the inability to recognize new threats and developments in the industry you work in. New advancements cannot be overlooked, period. If there’s anything out there that makes your work cheaper or quicker, you can bet that some other company has already grabbed it, and now you’re a step behind on the competition. Recognizing new forces on your share of the market is just as important, and being too prideful can cause someone to overlook a newer, smaller business, dismissing it as too small or inferior to be an actual threat. Obviously, this attitude can come back to bite an entrepreneur later.
Becoming complacent and careless can be just as bad of a consequence of too much pride. Quality cannot slip in a highly competitive market, or your customers will find another company to fill their needs. Staying sharp and skilled is a big part of why people would come back to your business, and repeat customers can be worth their weight in gold. Ignoring room for improvement can come from thinking that there is no improvement possible, and that frankly is not how businesses grow.
A proud person will also rarely ask for help, even when they could really use it. Whether it be help with marketing, or help thinking of new services or products your company can excel at, asking around for good ideas is the trait of a good businessperson, but unfortunately not the trait of a very proud person. Consulting companies are there to help expand your business, and ignoring specific kinds of expertise while laboring under the notion that you can do everything just as well yourself can be extremely wasteful of both your time and money.
All of that said, pride can be a driving force as well. Nobody said you shouldn’t take some measure of pride in your accomplishments and your work. Pride is part of what makes some people great at their jobs, and their businesses thrive because of it. The important thing is to maintain balance between pride and humility, to make sure that you’re not pigeonholing your company and blocking it from its later potential.
Sources: http://successcreeations.com/26/success-principle-8-pride-can-destroy-your-success/
By: Russell Busse
The first thing to address is the refusal to listen to new ideas. While it may seem obvious, small businesses thrive on being mobile, adaptable, and more nimble than their larger competitors. By not embracing innovation due to the belief that you’ve got everything already figured out, you take away the largest advantage of the small business, and more likely than not will get left in the dust as other companies fill in the void that you’ve allowed to form.
Close behind the development of stubbornness and becoming stuck in your ways is the inability to recognize new threats and developments in the industry you work in. New advancements cannot be overlooked, period. If there’s anything out there that makes your work cheaper or quicker, you can bet that some other company has already grabbed it, and now you’re a step behind on the competition. Recognizing new forces on your share of the market is just as important, and being too prideful can cause someone to overlook a newer, smaller business, dismissing it as too small or inferior to be an actual threat. Obviously, this attitude can come back to bite an entrepreneur later.
Becoming complacent and careless can be just as bad of a consequence of too much pride. Quality cannot slip in a highly competitive market, or your customers will find another company to fill their needs. Staying sharp and skilled is a big part of why people would come back to your business, and repeat customers can be worth their weight in gold. Ignoring room for improvement can come from thinking that there is no improvement possible, and that frankly is not how businesses grow.
A proud person will also rarely ask for help, even when they could really use it. Whether it be help with marketing, or help thinking of new services or products your company can excel at, asking around for good ideas is the trait of a good businessperson, but unfortunately not the trait of a very proud person. Consulting companies are there to help expand your business, and ignoring specific kinds of expertise while laboring under the notion that you can do everything just as well yourself can be extremely wasteful of both your time and money.
All of that said, pride can be a driving force as well. Nobody said you shouldn’t take some measure of pride in your accomplishments and your work. Pride is part of what makes some people great at their jobs, and their businesses thrive because of it. The important thing is to maintain balance between pride and humility, to make sure that you’re not pigeonholing your company and blocking it from its later potential.
Sources: http://successcreeations.com/26/success-principle-8-pride-can-destroy-your-success/
By: Russell Busse
