The Biggest Roadblock to Business Success
- Written by
- Daniel Britten
Have you ever said you will do something – either in your business or personal life – only to watch another year pass and nothing changes? This is 95% more likely to happen if you only have yourself to be accountable to.
Lack of accountability in small business owners is one of the biggest factors holding people back from improving their business. It is relatively easy to make your team accountable to you, but it is often harder to make yourself accountable to someone … which consequently stops a lot of small business owners from doing much to improve their business.
There are around 400,000 SME’s in New Zealand with 70% of these being small, one-man-bands, often with only their husbands or wives to talk to about anything – which can be challenging at the best of times. As outlined in a recent Herald article, around 80% of SME’s identified isolation as one of their biggest problems in business.
So whether it be a mentor, a mate, or your accountant, having someone to talk to, challenge you, ask questions and to ultimately hold you to account for improving your business, is one of the most important elements for success in a small business. This should be someone that can help you remove yourself from the short-term running of your business and shift your mindset to one of a longer-term strategy. One of the most critical functions is to establish strategies and a long-term perspective to help you establish, improve and execute a plan.
Watch your business thrive
Businesses in the Taupō region are no exception to this issue and typify the traditional SME in NZ. Although it can be hard to open up to others about your business, Taupō has great support networks available to small businesses who put their hands up for it. For example, Enterprise Great Lake Taupō (EGLT) run a great business mentor network, which has a diverse range of mentors available to help out in different industries.
This has also become a real focus area of ours at Strettons, as we see an increased number of businesses – both young and old – identify the need for help to set long-term strategies, be held accountable and ultimately, watch their businesses thrive.
