Sonar's Journal: 10 Fantastic Ways To Destroy Your Business

May 27, 2015

With the mad rush by many to start up their own businesses in order to bear the proud title of Chief Executive Officer CEO, or just to get away from bad bosses, we have come to see more and more businesses failing to survive their first one year, those that manage to exceed one year, drag along till they eventually fail due to bad internal and external policies affecting the business and sometimes as a result of the copy and paste mentality. With this, it leaves a few businesses run by a rare breed of bosses thriving.

The business of business is business agreed but before I move on with the list let us ask our selves, what is the business of your business? Surely to make money right? Apparently wrong.

Everywhere you turn you find one fancy business principle or the other being quoted by many like an Anthem but with few actually applying any. Apparently there is a goldmine for every business, finding that goldmine before starting is key, that goldmine when found is the business of that business according to Chief Executive Officers of Blue Chip companies around the world.

Today, a lot of businesses operate with the notion that their goldmine is money no thanks to the owners mentality. This in turn reflect in a variety of ways that affect the business negatively. It makes for one of the key point on this list. So here goes ten fantastic ways to destroy your business:

1. FOCUS ON MONEY (IGNORE CUSTOMERS FEEDBACK)

Before you come aiming for my THROAT, read on to understand how this is wrong. If you have ever felt cheated as a customer after buying something or employing the services of a business because little or no attention was given to your inquiries especially after you paid, it’s most likely because they value your money than you.

After feeling this way do you go back to patronize them? There you have it, it’s usually bye bye to such business, their poor customer care policy not to mention the negative PR that will follow. The business is heading for failure.

2. MAKE BIG BUYS FROM YOUR BUSINESS

Business ethics suggests that a business has to run for five years before it can start paying the owner a salary, while for bigger businesses seven years or more is required for full maturity. It is however recommended that any profit made from the business during the growth stage is pumped back into the business.

However, to destroy such business would be to start spending your profit as the CEO on personal things from day one which will in turn lead to you spending part of the capital and eventually closing the business in no time.

3. EMPLOY UNQUALIFIED STAFF

In order to save money on cheap labour some new businesses hire unqualified candidates without even giving training a decent thought. Needless to say the product would be poor service, unsatisfied customers and eventual loss of business due to bad PR etc.

4. EMPLOY FAMILY INDISCRIMINATELY

Employing someone out of sentiment is really not a good idea except they are actually capable of giving you three things, performance, loyalty and integrity. In cases of many family arrangement you don’t find these three things and you can’t do much to your own blood. They are stuck on you and you on them, it is bad for business.

5. SLASH SALARIES

What better way to incur the hatred of your staff than to slash their salaries. I mean as either punishment for something or to create room for you the boss to spend more on yourself. It is like shooting yourself in the head with a Canon because your business suffers directly as workers will start to grumble, drag feet and even begin to seek alternatives with less attention on your work.

No amount of shouting or threats will change anything, except your blood pressure which will certainly keep going up and trust me, when it starts going up, even gravity will not be able to bring it down.

6. OWE YOUR STAFF

Now it’s getting interesting, owing workers salary is one of if not the most effective demotivating factor in the workplace. It is sure to reduce their enthusiasm for your work especially when you owe them regularly. See it as giving an already tired horse Suplex for breakfast.

Some bosses would often inform staff of losses for a particular period as if that was the deal from the start, sharing losses with them meanwhile when there is profit you chop alone. Keep at this and the business is sure to come down crashing when the good hands leave one by one.

7. TALK DOWN ON YOUR STAFF

This is mostly common in businesses where employer and employee get to interact frequently. It is simply the act of speaking to workers in a manner void of common decency, usually in anger sometimes with the use of inappropriate descriptions or all out insults.

I know a married woman that resigned from her job because her immediate boss called her a fool. It didn’t end there, management ended up relieving the offending officer and offered the job to the lady in question.

Business Communication is clear on what is proper and what is not when it comes to communication in the work place regardless your mood. If you drag your staff down with your words, then don’t be surprised that you are also dragging your business down along with them.

8. MICROMANAGE YOUR WORKERS

There is this popular saying which has been around for God knows how long: “if you want something done then do it yourself” really? How many things can you do?

This is the Mindset of bosses that would not just allow their staff to work in peace without interrupting them incessantly for correction, sometimes these bosses even hijack the task to do it themselves with the excuse that the staff would mess up the task.

As a boss there are bigger issues to address and better ways to tackle smaller issues without humiliating your staff in the process. If your task is to cripple your business then keep micromanaging your staff, it is sure going to help you achieve that.

9. IMPOSE LONG WORK HOURS (NO OFF DAYS)

It’s no longer news that a lot of workers already feel like slaves due to the prevailing bad policies of their various workplaces. I mean in some cases you dare not work and think of anything else not when you work from morning till night doing ten people’s job.

So for business owners who want to destroy their businesses, this is an effective one. Once you steal all the useful time of your staff since you feel they don’t have lives of their own beside your work, it will sure keep them away from taking care of their personal issues which will build up to major distractions on the job once they start thinking and worrying over their private issues unattended to, it can also leading to poor health and depression.

Remember, no amount of your shouting or threats will change anything bedsides your blood pressure as your profit drops.

10. FIRE AND HIRE WITHOUT DELAY

For each staff fired and another hired, the business will experience setbacks in degrees depending on the designation of the person, this is because the vacuum created affects overall productivity even if another is assigned as interim officer pending a replacement.

This is the singular reason successful companies are rated not just based on profit but by their very low labour turnover (low sack and resignation rate). If a business is good people would not want to leave, same applies to the level of laying people off since the right hands would have been employed during recruitment.

For business owners, the key here to ruin the business is to sack everyone you do not like at a whim, let sacking become your habit, good luck.

***There are more ways to destroy your business but I just decided to focus on these and it is little wonder the majority of the items on the list deals with employer employee relationship, a topic largely ignored by many, even high level business seminars focus more on profit maximization, networking, resources control, creation of systems, make money, make money, more money, cheddar cheddar (lol) funny but serious.

If growing your business is your aim then application of the reverse of everything you just read could sure help, making Workers Day less depressing, Children’s Day more fun and the home a happier place.

Culled from world class business principles, simplified in common language.

About The Writer:

Sunday Imonah, also known as Lord Sonar because of his good music ears and vocal prowess, is an enigmatic Presenter on Drive Time belt, the Weekend run as well as other belts on Metro FM, He is a voice Actor and writer at heart. He has produced, written, and directed creative works for the Station and beyond. He has voiced Commercials for Companies like Afrab Chem, Cornoil, numerous pharmaceutical and beverage companies as well as religious houses to mention but a few. Sunday is a social critic who uses his writings to proffer solutions for social good.