Around The Wash: Avoiding Pitfalls ilies to support and bills to pay, and places to go. They want their opinions and concerns heard, acknowledged and addressed. Not all suggestions will be implemented, or are even logical, but it is important to listen. More than just listening to them, reward them for hard work with adequate pay and bonuses. It’s important to remember that your reputation as a good, or horrible boss or business owner can spread like wildfire. Negative word-of-mouth can hurt a business, even if you own an exceptional car wash, so make sure your own employee(s) or customers are doing some good marketing for you. Do not let ego, or stubbornness become a pitfall that you cannot overcome. ■ PITFALL #4: Ignoring the Pitfalls Thinking you know everything and have it all figured out is another big pitfall. You have to always keep yourself in check and know that small businesses fail all the time. The aforementioned pitfalls are just a few of the many I see business owners fall into, and there are so many more out there to be aware of and avoided. Avoiding them will certainly help in keeping your business afloat and will certainly help you along your journey to becoming an established business. Read reviews of your business. Check the Nextdoor App, Facebook, Yelp and Google to see if anyone is talking about your business. Ask your customers if they are satisfied. Take classes provided at tradeshows and the SBA. It is important to be flexible and think outside the box for solutions to help you avoid becoming part of the 90% that do not make it. Why Startups Fail The following graphics were from Entreprenuer.com: Rob Schruefer is the owner of On The Spot Detailing out of Columbia, Maryland. He proudly serves on the board of the International Detailing Association and works tirelessly to ensure that detailing business owners receive business development support to help them achieve their goals. When not writing the cover story, Rob is a regular contributor for Auto Detailing News with his column, The Business of Detailing. Famous Companies that Failed to Pivot It’s no secret that familiar and once-popular business chains are closing down...forever. From Toys R Us, to Kmart, to non-brick and mortar companies such as MySpace and Motorola. People will say they miss the businesses, but how much money were they actually giving them. Little to none was the case and the businesses ultimately closed. The reason? According to experts, it’s because they failed to pivot and change with the times, and the generations. The baby boomers had different needs than Generation X-ers, but some businesses didn’t consider this or maybe didn’t want to waste potential time and money on investing in such changing needs. Toys “R” Us CEO David Brandon, stated in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing in 2017 that the company fell behind its competitors “on various fronts, including with regard to general upkeep and the condition of our stores.” And, while Amazon.com competition wasn’t helping matters, customers complained of the stores’ warehouselike environments with little to no customer service. As for the once extremely popular and money-making machine that was Blockbuster, it wasn’t Netflix that did the company in, it was the company’s failure to reimagine its prototype. While the business did welcome new ways to make money and serve its clientele by offering video game and music rentals in the 1990s, it didn’t think past the way in which to make money through $3+ rentals and late fees. In fact, Netflix approached Blockbuster with a proposal to team up and set the stage for a mail-order and brick and mortar prototype. But that proposal was rejected. According to Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix, that meeting was upsetting, but not detrimental. In his book, No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention. Hastings wrote: “I am often asked, “How did this happen? Why could Netflix repeatedly adapt but Blockbuster could not?” That day we went to Dallas, Blockbuster held all the aces. They had the brand, the power, the resources, and the vision. Blockbuster had us beat hands down. It was not obvious at the time, even to me, but we had one thing that Blockbuster did not: a culture that valued people over process, emphasized innovation over efficiency, and had very few controls. Our culture, which focused on achieving top performance with talent density and leading employees with context, not control, has allowed us to continually grow and change as the world, and our members’ needs, have likewise morphed around us.” 12 • WINTER 2022 Astromatic Softgloss 3.375x4.875 ad Ver A 15DEC20 PREPRESS
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