What I am about to tell you is what in my opinion is heart of the matter or more accurately, the commonalities I have seen in most, if not all small businesses and small business owners.

1) Small business owners live in ‘isolation’.

• They have no one to talk to
• No one to bounce ideas off of
• No one to ask advice or brainstorm and problem solve with

2) There is no one to hold the small business owner accountable.

• It is easy to fool yourself.

Especially if the task is something you don’t like doing. For instance, when I first started my business, cold calling was a must. I hated it – still do… So it was easy for me to justify or rationalize not getting around to doing it. “Oh, I was busy doing X or Y or Z”. Anything not to do cold calling, including “arranging my sock drawer”.

• It is much harder to fool someone else.

If there had been someone to hold me accountable for doing the cold calling, I’m sure I would have done much more of it than I did and potentially my business would have grown that much quicker.

3) They have no “game plan”.

• No 90 day plan, much less a
• One Year Plan or a
• Long Range Plan (3 to 5 Years)

As Yogi Berra said “If you don’t know where your going any road will get you there”.

These three issues make the typical small business owner vulnerable to, at the very least, complacency and at its worst FAILURE.

Over time as I have talked to small business owners I ask them “Who is your support group for problem solving? Who is holding you accountable? Do you think you would be more successful if you had these? ”

Invariably they think it’s a great idea and want to know where to go to find one. Unfortunately most formal or for profit CEO Roundtable cost much more than the typical small business owner can afford (or rather want to pay).

I have encouraged them to start their own support group of similar businesses. Many have asked that I start and facilitate the group and I am trying to carve out some time to start these up. 

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