The document discusses various ways that small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) often neglect important aspects of running their business. Some key areas of neglect mentioned include: failing to follow up with potential clients over time to build trust and credibility before closing deals; not paying enough attention to financial statements; lacking clear values and vision that guide decision-making; focusing marketing efforts on chasing new leads rather than nurturing current customers; and not establishing strong processes and documentation for business operations. The document provides advice from various experts on how SMBs can improve in these neglected areas to better manage and grow their business over the long run.

1. WHAT SMBS ARE
NELGLECTING
PRESENTED BY

2. Follow-up.Chances are, when you first contact or meet a potential client
Ian Brodie
they’re not going to be ready to buy right now. Partly it’s timing – probably
Ian Brodie helps consultants, coaches and other professionals to
attract and win more clients. He writes the award winning More
Clients blog, and recently released his Pain Free Marketing
approach to getting more clients without the pain and expense of
traditional marketing.
the issue or need isn’t big enough for them yet. And partially it’s because
you haven’t built up enough credibility and trust yet for them to feel
comfortable hiring you.It may be 3 months, 6 months, 9 months or more
before they’re ready to buy. And when they are, if you haven’t followed up,
if you haven’t kept in touch and built your credibility and trust – then it
won’t be you they reach out to.But if you keep in touch. if you keep adding
value – doing useful stuff for them (rather than just nagging to see if
they’re ready to buy) then when they’re ready, they’ll turn to
you.Unfortunately, most SMBs don’t do this. They give up if someone isn’t
ready to buy straight away. As a result, they’re always chasing new hot
leads – rather than closing the big deals that have warmed up over time.
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3. In a tight economy, it’s important to “skeptic-proof” your business. I think
Julie Steelman
SMB’s need to re-fine their sweet spot and get more clear about their
Julie Steelman’s former clients read like a Who’s Who of big-name
corporate giants with Apple, Microsoft, Toyota, CBS, Sony Studios
and Universal Pictures in her rolodex. She generated more than
$100+ million in sales during her 30-year sales career. Julie is the
author of The Effortless Yes! and is known as The Sales, Success
& Bankability Mentor.
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5. Financial Statements: One of the top areas of neglect for entrepreneurs is
Carol Roth
in financial statements. Many small business owners don’t pay attention
Carol Roth is a business strategist, deal maker and author of the
New York Times bestselling book, The Entrepreneur Equation. She
has helped her clients, ranging from solopreneurs to multinational
corporations, raise more than $1 billion in capital, complete more
than $750 million worth of M&A transactions, secure high-profile
to financial statements or worse yet, don’t even do them on a regular
basis. In fact, a lot of business owners think credit card and checking
account statements qualify as financial statements (or worse, don’t know
licensing and partnership deals and create million dollar brand
the difference between a 401k plan and a 5K run). Being lazy or ignorant
loyalty programs.
in this area can spell ruin for business owners. Financial statements can
show you what is working and what isn’t, where expenses are running
amok and even cash flow issues. If you don’t understand the financial
statements, hire someone else to do them and to teach you what to look
for. Ignoring your financial statements can put your business in serious
jeopardy.
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6. Most businesses today are neglecting the importance of knowing their
Liz Strauss
own values. Values define how we make our decisions. If we know our
Liz Strauss is a Brand Strategist, Community Builder, Founder of
SOBCon. She blogs at LizStrauss.com and Successful-Blog.com
values, we can identify our ideal employees and our ideal customers. An
extreme example, if my highest value is simply growing the bottom line, I
want to people who share that value, because then I can trust that their
decisions will be based on making money. When our values are aligned
we don’t have to explain why we’re doing things. Values drive the mission
that keeps all of a business going in the same direction. Steve Jobs
valued different thinking that brought art to technology and held that
expectation to every product, partner, and employee. In turn that attracted
customers who shared those values. Your values are the key to customer
loyalty.
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7. Focusing on buyers who would give them the best return on time
Bob Urichuck
invested. They spend 80% of their time of buyers who give them 20% of
Bob Urichuck is an International Professional Speaker, Trainer and
Author of two best selling books “Up Your Bottom Line” and
“Disciplined for Life: You are the Author of Your Future.” Bob has
been recognized as Consummate Speaker of the year and ranked
#7 in the World’s top 30 Sales Gurus.
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their revenues, instead of 80% of their time on buyers who give them 80%
of their revenues. Targeting for R.O.T.I.

8. It is the combination of ROI and helping others (building community too)
Elinor Stutz
that builds a truly dynamic business. My observation is that most men
Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale, LLC authored the International
Best-Selling book, “Nice Girls DO Get the Sale: Relationship
Building That Gets Results”, Sourcebooks and the best selling
career book, “HIRED! How to Use Sales Techniques to Sell Yourself
On Interviews”, Career Press. She provides team sales training,
primarily focus on their own ROI, while women primarily focus on their
passion and how to make this a better world. Perfection would be the
meeting of the male and female minds! Having interviewed a number of
private coaching and highly acclaimed inspirational keynotes for
entrepreneurs who faced devastating circumstances that would have
conferences.
caused most to quit, they instead chose to build up communities as they
built themselves up from literally nothing. By helping others as they
advanced and remaining true to their belief in success not only did they
see incredible advancement and ROI but very loyal communities further
helping to advance their business.
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9. Customer satisfaction should be their most important issue.Time and
Jacques Werth
resources, for everything else, should be systematically allocated on daily
Jacques Werth is President of High Probability Selling, Inc – a
sales consulting and training company founded in 1989 . The
company specializes in sales process improvement. They have
trained salespeople, sales managers, consultants, and business
owners in over 70 industries.
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and weekly bases depending on their importance, i.e. sales and
marketing, design, production, administration, shipping, record keeping
and profitability analysis, etc.

10. I have seen SMB businesses fail on many fronts, but the ONE thing I
Ken Thoreson
often see is the failure to create a “prescriptive approach” to their
Ken Thoreson, Acumen Management Group, Ltd. president, is a
sales leadership professional who “operationalizes” sales
management systems and processes to pull sales results out of
thedoldrums into the fresh zone of predictable revenue. His blog,
Your Sales Management Guru, has been rated in the top 10 sales
blogs in the United States
business. Each aspect of your business must be documented and each
action by each employee should be clearly defined. This would not only
include the purpose of their job, but also a documented approach as to
how to do their particular job.When SMB owners and their employees
“wing it”, we see lost dollars, rework, and customer dissatisfaction. As you
add employees or hire new ones, this documentation will make it easier to
train them and in many situations, when we do this, we will find better
ways to improve the process.
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11. SMB’s make the mistake of not nurturing their employees. Coincidentally,
Dan
Waldschmid
t
Dan Waldschmidt is at war with conventional sales thinking. His
Edgy Conversations have turned hundreds of companies into rockstar businesses and the Wall Street Journal calls his blog one of
the” Top 7 sales blogs” anywhere in the world. He’s on a mission to
empower millions of high-performers all over the globe. You might
call him “an ordinary dude with an outrageous vision”.
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uninspired talent is the single biggest reason why small businesses fail.
Keeping an agile team of flexible workers mentally healthy is key to them
stay motivated and high performers — and you growing your business
fast and profitably. It might seem “kooky” to provide therapy for your team,
but it’s the best benefit you could ever deliver.

12. Selecting, building and developing the right people. The reason seems to
Harlan Goerger
be a short sighted view of addressing short term needs rather than long
Harlan Goerger has spent the last 25 years leading hundreds of his
client’s companies to expansive revenue growth. He is the author of
“The Selling Gap” and “Bypassing NO in Business” and spent 20
years as a sales leader with Dale Carnegie Associates.
term growth needs. Lets hire someone who costs less and see if they
stick around. So many times I’ve seen this happen and the outcomes
were not pretty. Poor performance, increased cost, costly errors and short
term employment.
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13. Small businesses tend to (not always, but quite often) have poor or no
Lori Richardson
processes in place to track potential customers and set next actions with
them. They nearly never have a surefire system in place to track strategic
Veteran Sales Detective Lori Richardson sifts through sales clues
and business practices to uncover hidden problems and assets,
then delivers creative tactics with a fresh approach so you can
Score More Sales. She is a sought after speaker, prolific blogger,
partners – those individuals and companies who can refer multiple
opportunities their way. This is crazy because in the case of tracking
sales trainer and multi-million dollar producer, and President of
potential customers (prospects), it takes multiple impressions and
Score More Sales – a sales strategy firm.
connections to build trust to bring business to closure. Therefore, just by
setting next actions and following up more, a company can grow business
in a most simple manner. In the case of being proactive with strategic
referrers, well this is the best type of business to get – referral business.
When someone refers a potential client your way, they are already more
qualified because a trusted person or company that they know
recommended you and your business. This means a shorter sale cycle,
and even more referrals when you do a good job.
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14. SMBs are neglecting building deeper client relationships. This is terribly
Diane Helbig
dangerous and stems from any one of a couple of places. Some SMBs
Diane Helbig is an internationally recognized business and
leadership development coach, author, speaker, and radio show
host. She is the author of Lemonade Stand Selling and founder of
Seize This Day Coaching.
think that their clients know everything the SMB offers and will call if they
need anything. Others are so focused on bringing in new clients that they
neglect current clients. And still others think their clients are happy and
will call when they need something.Why is this so dangerous? For
starters, SMBs need to know what’s going on with their clients. Do they
need anything? How are things going? Are they growing? Shrinking?
Implementing new initiatives? Knowledge is power. When you know
what’s going on with your clients you can help them, thereby increasing
your value. Secondly, you can’t assume that your clients know all you do.
Chances are good that they only thing your clients heard was the solution
to their current problem. It’s your job to continue building the relationship
and uncovering opportunities. And possibly most importantly, your clients
want to know that you value their business. If you aren’t staying in contact
with them, how will they know that? So, SMBs owe it to themselves to
continuously nurture the relationships with their current clients. That’s a
place where more business easily occurs – fulfilling the need for more
revenue.
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15. Many are not harnessing the true power of the internet social media.
Sean McPheat
More and more decision makers are turning to the internet and social
Managing Director of MTD Sales Training, Sean McPheat is
regarded as a thought leader on modern day selling. Sean has
been featured on CNN, ITV, BBC, SKY, Forbes, Arena Magazine
and has over 250 other media credits to his name. Sean’s latest
book “eselling® – How to use the internet & social media for
media to complete their research as they like to be in control of their
purchasing decisions more now than they have done in the past and
that’s down to the availability of information via the internet. They can
prospecting, personal branding, networking and for engaging the c-
research information on the products and services that they are
suite decision maker” is a #1 Amazon bestseller.
interested in, they can find out about your company, they can even
download your company accounts! They can look at review sites and then
they can go on over to your competitors website and do exactly the same
thing.So you need to be using the internet yourself to even up the odds.
For B2B sales there is no better decision making database in the world
than LinkedIn. You should also be using Twitter, Facebook pages and a
blog for distributing information and content. Companies like to deal with
experts so the more you can position yourself as an expert and trusted
advisor via the internet, the better.
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16. Many small business owners don’t spend enough time networking. While
Alyssa Gregory
finding the time necessary to attend networking events, conferences and
Alyssa Gregory is a small business collaborator and the founder of
the Small Business Bonfire, a social, educational and collaborative
community that provides small business help to entrepreneurs.
meetings is an undeniable challenge for most of us, investing time in
networking is almost always worth it. Those who make networking a
priority are able to expand their networks faster, find more productive
collaboration opportunities, learn more about the competition and the
industry, and think more strategically and objectively about their
businesses.
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17. SMB’s feel that they can relegate Marketing to the bottom of their list,
Sue Watkins
especially during hard times. This is a myth, as marketing your business
Sue Watkins has spent the last 20+ years developing marketing
strategies and campaigns. She also founded SMBmarketer.com
and authors the blog Smart Marketing Basics and tweets regularly
about small business marketing topics at @SMB_marketer
is key to long-term, sustainable growth. Just as you must continually
invest in new products and services, you should invest in acquiring new
customer prospects, nurturing them over time, and eventually converting
them into customers.
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