Do You Know The Biggest Business Killer?

Quick story…

It was eight years ago, and I was just starting my first big business venture.

I had done many things before. Creative real estate, MLM, sold some knives door-to-door. But frankly never had any great success at any of them.

But this was different. This was that “Big Idea!”

It took me about six months to write the business plan, line up all the details, and go around begging for some start up capital. At the ripe old age of 23 I suckered a bank into giving me a small business loan.

A little shocked, and flushed with my new found *borrowed* wealth. I went to work creating what was planned to become a chain of indoor flea markets called “Flea Mart“.

In that year I learned more about business, life, and myself than all my previous years. I never realized all that was involved in running a business, especially one housed in a 50,000 sq.ft building.

With offline businesses you have city governments to deal with, building codes, fire departments, tax collection, etc.

Plus, all the other normal problems that come with having thousands of customers every weekend.

But the thing that killed that business more than anything else was…

OVERHEAD

It is simply a business killer. It was then, and still is today.

At the time I was paying 20k per month just for the rent and another 6k just for electricity. I’m sure you can see, I quickly went broke.

Within six months, the business had to close. It was one of the hardest decisions of my life. There were flea market vendors who loved their mini retail space and wanted it to stay open. But, in the end I had no choice.

It was at this time I turned 100% to the internet for one reason…

LOW OVERHEAD

It was because of the ridiculous low cost of entry that I was able to bootstrap my way back up from bankruptcy to making more than I ever did in my life.

But even on the internet you are not immune. You still need to watch your overhead and ensure that you are running lean.

So here’s the lesson. Scale when you are ready to, and only when you know those resources will bring in more revenue. If you don’t follow this rule you will soon find yourself in the same situation I was in eight years ago. Bankrupt!

But on the flip side, there are times you can be the bottleneck in your business. Thinking you can handle it all, when a tiny bit of overhead would free up your time to be able to do the core money getting tasks.

So take the time today to take an honest look at your business.

Is there anything you’re doing that someone else could do better and cheaper? Things like customer service, backlinks, etc.

Now take a real hard look at everything else. What is essential and what is not. This can bring about some very tough decisions.

Eight years ago, I burned all my cash rapidly. In the end I had to lay everyone off, and close the business.

But if you operate as a lean machine now, you will never have to worry.

This is why I really focus on maximizing every aspect of the business by leveraging systems.

Here’s an example. I recently received an email from a Backlink University customer that was paying through the nose for some pretty basic SEO tasks.

Here’s what he said…

“You just saved me and my company, Code & Arrow, $1500/month!… Thank you so much!” ~ Kevin C. McCarthy

He had hired an SEO firm to do some pretty basic backlink work for $1,500 per month, and using the Backlink University systems he instantly saved over 90%.

When I was promoting Flea Mart, I was all over. TV Commercials, billboards, radio, and newspaper. I had hired a marketing firm to handle all my advertising. Boy was that ever a big mistake. They bled me dry with frivolous spending. Just take a look at one of the silly commercials.

 Have you experienced this in your business? Leave a comment below.