It’s eas­ier than you think to destroy a new business

Watch out for these seem­ingly innocu­ous busi­ness deci­sions that can lead to finan­cial ruin:

• Exten­sion Cords. Peo­ple get cold feet and they get a space heater. They plug it into a two-​pronged exten­sion cord and for­get to unplug it when they leave work. That night your entire new busi­ness burns to the ground. Your bril­liant mar­ket­ing plan, your three-​year pro­jec­tions, all of your records, your new prod­uct sam­ples — gone! Ban any exten­sion cords in your busi­ness that are not three-​pronged. Hol­i­days dec­o­ra­tions can turn, “Ho! Ho! Ho!” into, “Oh, No! No!” so take extra caution.

• Bad Receiv­ables. OK, you are using good judg­ment as to which cus­tomers get credit and how much. Even so, it is very easy to get into a business-​life-​threatening sit­u­a­tion because a big cus­tomer goes broke. Bad things hap­pen to good peo­ple. Good and hon­est inten­tions do not always result in get­ting paid. It is very painful and dif­fi­cult to cut off an old cus­tomer, espe­cially when you need the busi­ness. We learned the hard way when a cus­tomer went bank­rupt and left our graphic design com­pany on the hook for his large print­ing bill. Now we require the costs for customer’s print­ing up front. [Read More]

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