A couple of weeks ago my four year old, Ava, was having quite the time in the tub. Yelling, playing, and unfortunately, dumping out water. I could hear my wife yelling, “no, no, no!” But it was too late. “Ava, what were you doing?” Sarah asked. “Umm, I don’t know. It was an accident?” Ava said in a questioning fashion, wondering if her new found excuse for everything would work again.
We explained why it was a bad thing to pour water out, cleaned the mess, and went about our normal routine. That was until I was in the bathroom directly below the “Great Flood” and noticed some new water stains on the ceiling! “Bad words!” (I’ve learned to actually say “bad words”instead of the real thing.) I was not a happy camper and showed Ava why we don’t pour water out on the floor. She felt bad. She helped to put out a toy cup to catch water drops and gave me a dollar out of her piggy bank to fix the damage. I had been a bit of a jerk to my baby girl, so now I felt bad. But, it appeared the damage was done, so I would have to wait until the morning to see how much worse it would get.
The following day, I did notice a small leak coming through one of the newly formed water spots. Nothing major, but it was there. I placed a five-gallon bucket under it and went to work. I asked my mother-in-law, who was coming to the house for babysitting, to call me if things got worse. She called. She said it looked worse and even sent a picture. It didn’t look too bad to me. What I didn’t ask about was the five-gallon bucket. I should have. When I got home it was almost full! “Bad words!” I called a local plumber and I started cutting out the now larger wet spots in the ceiling.
After two hours, several more holes, and a keen eye, Ben the plumber discovered something I had not considered. A leak. “A leak”, I said. Wow. What are the odds? And then I thought about poor little Ava and how I was a jerk. “Bad words!” I gave her an apology and tried to give her the dollar back. She said “that’s okay Daddy, you keep it.” Sweet girl!
The assumption was that Ava caused the leak. I was wrong. It was, perhaps, a logical assumption, but it was the wrong conclusion.
Let’s take a look at bad assumptions made in small businesses:
- Assuming that your employees are purely motivated by money. Sure, they want to get paid; however, they primarily want to know that what they are doing matters, receive recognition, and work for someone they respect.
- Assuming that your old method of advertising is still working, without tracking where your revenue is coming from. Conversely, assuming your new advertising is a big flop, because it didn’t make it rain dollar bills in the first week of implementation.
- Assuming you can only more revenue from new customers. Most of the time, the best way to increase revenue is with your existing customers.
- Assuming your bookkeeper is doing everything correctly. If you don’t read your financial statements on a regular basis,you may have a lot in common with an ostrich that has its head in the sand.
- Assuming that you need to borrow money, when your business is short on cash. More times than not, the cash flow issue is from lack of effective marketing, not collecting accounts receivable, and letting expenses get out of control.
No comments :
Post a Comment