Baksht how to ruin your own business. Konstantin Alexandrovich Baksht How to ruin your own business. Bad advice for entrepreneurs

How to ruin your own business. Bad advice for entrepreneurs

DEDICATED TO MY FAMILY

A father who showed me how a man should live and die.

Mom, who supported me when I once again fell. And believed in me no matter what.

To my beloved uncle, who taught me that getting up once is not so important. It is important to be able to rise after a fall.

And, of course, Lena, Sasha and Misha.

I rise for you.

Introduction

They say that it is difficult to create and develop a business in Russia. Almost impossible. And that's the way it is.

There is practically no state support for business in our country. Rather the opposite. High officials seek to subdue big business- which is what they do in the intervals between the division of posts and the pilling of the budget. Lower rank officials suck blood from medium and small businesses. The tax system is not designed to make everyone pay taxes, but to make everyone feel guilty. Entrepreneurs are to blame for life. And responsible for everything.

Yet the great risks are balanced by no less great opportunities. The profitability of doing business in Russia can be enormous. Russian entrepreneurs ranked high on the list the richest people peace. This means to build successful business in Russia it is possible. And this is a fact!

However, the analysis of thousands of our enterprises led me to a sad conclusion. In Russia, the most dangerous person for a business is its owner.

Many of our businesses are doomed already at the stage of creation. If the business nevertheless began to rise to its feet, then the owner can finish him off with a hundred various ways. It seems that most entrepreneurs are constantly trying to ruin their own business.

Of course, they do it not out of masochism. And not because of sophisticated malice or insidiousness. Just trying to somehow raise and develop the business, they constantly make typical mistakes. Moreover, these errors are the same for the owners completely different businesses in different parts of the country.

In this book, I have tried to list the main "rake" that hinder the development or ruin the majority of small and medium-sized businesses in Russia. If you, when building your own business, do not repeat at least these mistakes - your business can already be considered exemplary. For reliability, at the end of each section, recommendations are given: what to do in order to build a business reliably and efficiently. Of course, not all recipes are given. But a few of the most important and key are still described.

They say smart people learn from the mistakes of fools. And fools don't even learn from their own mistakes. The truth is, you can't build a business without making your own mistakes. But you don't have to do it yourself. all mistakes, right? If this book can save you even a few mistakes, each of which can cost you your business, then you bought and read it for a reason. So go ahead!

Chapter 1

We create a business to become a business owner

Do you know the statistics of survival among new businesses? In the first three years since their creation, about two-thirds of them perish. Over the next three years, two-thirds of the survivors die. Result: out of newly created businesses, only one in nine survives after six years from the moment of creation.

Many businesses are doomed from the start simply because they were built. in vain. Each case is initially created to implement some idea. But not every idea is good enough to make a viable business. And the most disastrous idea for the future business is the idea of the founders “We create a business because we want to become business owners.”

Someone creates a business to make the best Italian restaurant in the city - this business has a chance of success. Someone creates a business to produce quality tiles and sell them throughout the country - this business also has a chance of success.

And someone creates a business because being the owner of a business is cool. You are your own master, a free man. Employees work for you. You are their great and terrible boss. Again, how your status rises in any party! You present yourself as the owner of your own business - not like the miserable mercenaries around you!

As a result, aspiring entrepreneurs sleep and see how to build their own business. They take the first idea that comes to mind. They convince themselves that success is inevitable. And start a business.

"Let's organize our monthly city magazine!" 150 city magazines have already been published in the city this year. 30 of them went bankrupt. Of course, the new unremarkable magazine is going to be an outstanding success!

"Let's organize our salon cellular communication!" As a result of ever-increasing competition, most freestanding salons closed 3-5 years ago. Nowadays, only networks of communication salons are competitive. First of all - the Russian scale. But of course, new salon on Chuvyrlovka Street will become an exception to the laws of the market. And make their owners rich!

In fact, not every idea (even a smart one) can turn into a successful business. It is often necessary to work out and calculate 10-20 ideas in order to start implementing only one of them. Moreover, there are no guarantees that this very best idea will turn into a successful business. Ultimately, you make an attempt, make every effort to achieve the goal. In some cases, you get a more or less successful business. In others, you lose the strength and means invested in this attempt. Partially or completely. And in any case, you gain invaluable experience.

You have no guarantee of success. Even when you have worked through many ideas and have chosen the most successful of them. What to say about the situation when the first idea that comes to mind is taken and they try to build a business out of it? Some of these attempts are simply striking in their cretinism. At the same time, the one who creates such a business is not always a cretin. More often it is about self-deception. A person wants to organize his business so much that he convinces himself of the prospects and success of his business idea. This is where the fundamental principle of persuasion comes into play...

It is much easier to convince yourself of the success of your business than to convince the market.

In addition, many business founders do not even understand which business idea can become successful and which cannot. Young enthusiasts lack elementary life experience. Adults and more experienced people are bred for leftist business ideas by their young and energetic acquaintances and relatives. The most dangerous thing here is when the “investor” with money does not understand the specifics of the proposed business idea. For example, a cherub trades in the market and knows nothing about computers. Thinks computers are cool. They are the future. As a result, the son, who is fond of computer games, persuades his mother to give money - to create a computer game club. The son himself squanders a couple of thousand a month in gaming clubs. And he thinks it's a cool business. He knows nothing about how to organize it. Not about how hard it is to find the right system administrators. Not that the market has been oversaturated for four years now. And most organized gaming clubs go down the drain. The result is natural: mother's money is blown to the wind.

Instruction

First of all, enough of the frenzy. You are a person, not a machine. Start small: turn off your alarm and get up when you feel like it, don’t forget to stop by a couple of stores along the way, cancel all meetings in the morning, and the more sudden, the better. Do not explain the reason for the cancellation to anyone: you are not obliged to them!
If you are still there for dinner, first answer a couple of personal letters, read everything on Yandex, go to lunch, and only then proceed to. By the way, on the iPhone a lot interesting games.

Secondly, never spend extra money on creating and maintaining a company website, especially if you sell something through it. Hire a first-year student, or better, let him make you the simplest site and not update it too often. After all, customers will buy everything they need anyway, from you or not from you.

Thirdly, if a lawsuit has been filed against you, do not rush to hire lawyers to represent your interests. It's expensive, and you already have a lawyer, even two. True, they are mainly engaged in design employment contracts with employees, but what if they also succeed in representing the interests of your company in court? Needless to check.

Fourth, if you have negotiations ahead, then it is not at all necessary to prepare for them. You are not the first day in business and you know all the clients better than your own relatives. And when did you fail impromptu? ..

Fifth, think about relatives. It seems that one of them recently complained that he had lost his job. Show participation - take it to yourself. Maybe a couple more friends. Working in your own company will be much more interesting. And those that none of you like can be delegated to the rest.

Sixth, you spend too much money on staff training. Why all these trainings role-playing games and seminars? Everyone or almost everyone can sell, and if he still can’t sell effectively, then most likely he’s just lazy.

Seventh, it is not at all necessary to check the solvency of customers. If a client comes to you, he definitely has money. The fact that he does not comply with the terms of payment does not say anything bad about him. When you hear from a new client that your company's services are expensive, immediately make a 50% discount.

Related videos

note

How to ruin your own business. CHAPTER 1 Co-founders, or when there is no agreement among the comrades. One of the most effective ways to ruin the business from the very beginning - to do it together with partners. In Russia, an attempt to launch a new business not alone subsequently means a death sentence for this case - with a probability of more than 50%. The reasons for this are many.

Useful advice

How to ruin your own business Whoever is not familiar with "Bad advice" by Grigory Oster is unlikely to appreciate the "bad advice" of Konstantin Baksht to Russian entrepreneurs, because he probably does not read books at all. If the first tips are useful to everyone - from young to old, then in the second, children will see only funny pictures: one, for example, depicts an eccentric chained to a shovel, throwing everything that comes to hand into the furnace.

Sources:

Specialized website for small businesses.

Start your own business is the dream of many. Of course organizing own enterprise, a person is set for success and expects that over time it will become successful and profitable. However, there are many examples when after a while the enterprise became bankrupt, and the entrepreneur again began to work “for his uncle”. We analyzed the main mistakes made by them. And now if you want to ruin yours too business then we can give you some valuable advice.

Instruction

Choose an area of activity where you have no competitors at all, avoid them by occupying a marginal niche. The lack of competition will lead you to the absence of the need to generate good ideas and develop the business. Your caution and reluctance to participate in a highly competitive business will allow you to stay on the sidelines.

Get involved in a business that you don’t understand the details of and don’t be interested in its specifics. Entrust it to conduct 2-3

Current page: 1 (total book has 22 pages) [available reading excerpt: 5 pages]

Konstantin Aleksandrovich Baksht

How to ruin your own business. Bad advice entrepreneurs

DEDICATED TO MY FAMILY

A father who showed me how a man should live and die.

Mom, who supported me when I once again fell. And believed in me no matter what.

To my beloved uncle, who taught me that getting up once is not so important. It is important to be able to rise after a fall.

And, of course, Lena, Sasha and Misha.

I rise for you.

Introduction

They say that it is difficult to create and develop a business in Russia. Almost impossible. And that's the way it is.

There is practically no state support for business in our country. Rather the opposite. High officials seek to subjugate big business - which they do in between the division of posts and the budget pillage. Lower rank officials suck blood from medium and small businesses. The tax system is not designed to make everyone pay taxes, but to make everyone feel guilty. Entrepreneurs are to blame for life. And responsible for everything.

Yet the great risks are balanced by no less great opportunities. The profitability of doing business in Russia can be enormous. Russian entrepreneurs take pride of place in the list of the richest people in the world. So, it is possible to build a successful business in Russia. And this is a fact!

However, the analysis of thousands of our enterprises led me to a sad conclusion. In Russia, the most dangerous person for a business is its owner.

Many of our businesses are doomed already at the stage of creation. If the case nevertheless began to rise to its feet, then the owner can finish it off in a hundred different ways. It seems that most entrepreneurs are constantly trying to ruin their own business.

Of course, they do it not out of masochism. And not because of sophisticated malice or insidiousness. Just trying to somehow raise and develop the business, they constantly make typical mistakes. Moreover, these mistakes are the same for owners of completely different businesses in different parts of the country.

Chapter 1

We create a business to become a business owner

"Let's organize our own cell phone salon!" As a result of ever-increasing competition, most freestanding salons closed 3-5 years ago. Nowadays, only networks of communication salons are competitive. First of all - the Russian scale. But, of course, the new salon on Chuvyrlovka Street will be an exception to the laws of the market. And make their owners rich!

...

It is much easier to convince yourself of the success of your business than to convince the market.

The real reason why most start-up businesses fail is even deeper: To effectively build a business, you need to be a professional business owner yourself. The profession of a business owner is complex and difficult. It is learned mainly by trial and error. If the business owner is not experienced and professional enough, he can ruin any business that would have become quite successful for another owner.

...

I think learning is the key professional qualities necessary for a successful owner, it is better to someone else's business - in which you are employed. A professional owner needs to be a pro in three professions: sales-negotiations, management and financial management. It makes sense to plan your career in such a way as to solve serious practical tasks in all three areas.

But experience in sales, management, and finance does not make you a professional owner. The owner must know and be able to do what no employee knows or can do. Therefore, it is wise to enter your first business as a junior partner in co-founding with an experienced main owner whose business management style you like. You may not end up as a co-founder in this business as a result. But on the other hand, you will get experience that is much more valuable.

Also, the big question is, should you really become a business owner? Own business is a terrible stress and a very big responsibility. Imagine that the month was not entirely successful and you need to lay out 3,500,000 rubles to cover the current losses of the business. From own pocket. And so - for several months in a row. And two leading employees realized that the matter smelled of kerosene, and dumped you, taking their Client base. Many business owners can't handle the pressure that weighs on them and gets on their nerves every month. First they break. Then their business dies.

If you create a business to become a free person, you will not succeed. There is no more unfree person in business than its owner. Any of your employees can leave you. You have nowhere to go from your own business. You are 100% financially responsible. In addition, your employees look into your mouth and expect a miracle from you every day. So you become the main workaholic in your own business. Many business owners I know work 10 to 14 hours a day. No weekends or passes. Some of them do not go on vacation for 5-7 years. What job would you be so stressed out at? It turns out that in fact you have become not the owner of the business, but its slave.

Therefore, starting your own business in order to become a free person is not the most best idea. This can be achieved by completely different means - by seriously investing.

...

The idea that you can become a free person by starting your own business is just a myth.

It's time to deal with another popular myth - that you need to have your own business in order to earn a lot of money.

We create a business to make a lot of money

The next popular misconception is “Now I will become the owner of a business and make a lot of money.” Indeed, many business owners are very wealthy people. The only nuance is that only owners become wealthy people successful businesses. And as we already know, most businesses die before they become successful.

If the whole idea of a business is only to make a lot of money, such a business may be doomed from the very beginning. Every business is organized for profit. But Clients bring you profit because they get something useful and valuable for themselves. They won't pay your Company just because you want to make a lot of money. Actually, the mission of your Company should be the answer to the question:

...

“What is so useful and valuable that my business gives to Clients so that they pay him money?”

Suppose that at the heart of the business is still a smart business idea that makes it possible to make money. But it won't be easy to earn money right away. First, you will make the initial investment. Then every month you will pay current expenses. Incomes will not appear at all from the very beginning. The first happy month will be the one when current income exceeds current costs, that is, the business passes the break-even point on current payments. To this moment financial results creating a business is a deep minus. Equal to the sum of initial investments and current losses for all previous months.

The beautiful idea of starting a business without investment is nowhere near as beautiful upon closer inspection. Only a few businesses can normally start without significant investment. Often underfunding is a delayed death sentence. Such a business can be organized. And it can even generate income for a while. But then the competition intensifies, the business begins to incur losses and die. The question arises: because of what problems the business is dying? But there is only one problem: it was necessary to invest more at the very beginning!

Thus, the business at the time of launch creates a big hole in the pocket for its owner. The next few months (or even a year or two), the total losses increase. Even when a business reaches current profitability, the business owner is the last one in line to give out money. First you need to pay all current obligations. Then invest in development: pay for advertising and additionally acquired property. And only what remains of mandatory payments and investments in development is received by the owner.

That is why professional owners are so attentive to the return on investment period. At the moment when the owner fully returns to himself all the funds invested in the business, he yet didn't earn anything. But he already didn't lose anything. That is, he has the right to at least not feel like a fool.

Conclusion: organizing new business, You must foresee a situation in which you bear operating expenses for a whole year and do not receive any income. If you can afford it - welcome to our entrepreneurial ranks! In any case, you are already ready for planned losses.

Easy money, or Copy someone else's profitable business

To create a successful business, you need a good business idea. It's not easy to think of it. Many entrepreneurs are racking their brains but can't come up with any worthwhile business idea. Therefore, they act more simply: why invent your own when you can borrow someone else's?

These entrepreneurs see someone else's profitable business and think they could do the same. And earn money. They especially love to create businesses that create everything around. The result is natural: in most cases, such entrepreneurs end up with nothing.

...

EXAMPLE

In each region, a fashion periodically begins for a business, turning into an epidemic. In the region N one of the first business epidemics was the pharmacy. The first pharmacies were indeed profitable enterprises. After that, everyone who could only began to open them. Most of these pharmacies did not recoup even the initial investment. As a result, only pharmacy chains remained competitive. All individual pharmacies went into the red and were bought by chains.

Then there were business epidemics of communication stores, Internet centers, enterprises manufacturing plastic windows, photo shops ... Some of them were just outrageous.

The first Internet center - "A." - cost its owners a tidy sum: 40 thousand dollars was invested only in repairs. Repair of this class makes sense to do only in own room, as happened in this case. (If you do too good a renovation in a rented space, it will either result in you moving out of the space or increasing the rent.) A lot has been invested in both furniture and computer equipment. All costs paid off in 11 months. Not bad.

For the second Internet center - "B.M." - organized by the same owners, the invested funds were returned in 9 months.

Both internet centers brought income to their owners. And very significant.

After the B.M. Internet Center was launched, many other entrepreneurs in the region N got interested similar business. Soon more than ten new Internet centers were opened. Most of them could not even reach self-sufficiency. Why?

The main source of income for Internet centers was ... network computer games. The very name "internet center" was a cover - so that taxes were not taken from computers, as from slot machines. Although Internet services were also provided in them. The first Internet center fell into the stream. Many teenagers were interested in playing computer games over the network. And they were willing to pay for it. The second center, located on the main pedestrian street of the city, allowed to seriously increase the number of such players. But their total number in the city and the amount of money that could be collected from them every month were limited. While this turnover was divided into two Internet centers, the business was highly profitable. When the number of centers increased from two to twelve, the number of players did not increase sixfold. It has remained about the same. But the money they brought began to be divided not into two parts, but into twelve. Wherein the lion's share still went to two "old" Internet centers, which already had their own clientele. In order to somehow attract visitors, new centers began to dump. But the money of the Clients was not enough for the self-sufficiency of the centers even at the old rates. And dumping just accelerated the collapse of the market. In the next couple of years, most Internet centers simply worked in the red. And closed one by one. In parallel with this, new Internet centers were opened. Their owners believed that they would be able to make money on this business! They probably thought that before them only idiots were engaged in this business. As a result, the Internet centers of the newly-minted smart people could not even earn money for coverage running costs. And they burned at cosmic speed.

Summary: if today this line of business is highly profitable and easy to enter, then soon the total profitability of all businesses this direction will tend to zero. This means that most of these businesses will simply be unprofitable.

To put it even more simply, if you are going to invest in a business that is not very difficult to enter and in which you can make a lot of money quickly, keep in mind that you are not the only one who is so smart. There are a whole city of such “wise men”. And many of them are at this very moment investing in the same business that you are going to invest in. As a result, the number of such businesses will increase several times. The number of Clients will not increase. None of you - "wise guys" - will not be able to return even the money invested.

A separate topic is the situation when an employee (junior partner) leaves the Company. To create his own business, like two drops of water similar to the business from which he left. Most of these attempts are doomed to failure from the start. Some, however, may be successful. So which takeover attempts have a chance of success, and which do not?

When the business is purely intermediary (buy-sell), it can be successfully “taken away” along with the Client base. The opportunities for such “withdrawal” are especially great for a merchant who serves the main clients of the Company. And maintains a personal relationship with them. The likelihood of "withdrawal" increases if face-to-face meetings with key clients carried out only by this merchant. And the rest of the Company's employees do not personally meet with them and do not go to visit them. Phone calls are not enough! The likelihood of "withdrawal" is even higher if the same people are engaged in both sale and purchase. And even higher if a significant volume of deliveries is made to order - that is, large stocks are not required.

The more resources are required to organize a business, the more difficult it is to “take away” such a business without outright theft. It is more reliable when serious investments, real estate, licenses, and administrative resources are needed to organize a business. All this provides additional protection against "withdrawal".

Complex businesses are not badly protected from "withdrawal". A complex business is not easy to raise and promote. But it is also not easy to reproduce it, that is, to “take it away”. That's what I've always liked the business of providing Internet services. In this business any initial funding is not a sufficient condition for the creation successful business. The same can be said about many other high-tech and "expert" businesses.

The most unfortunate option for "withdrawal" of a business is when they try to create a small copy of the original business. Such a copy does not differ from the original in anything other than size and resources. When asked how the new business will be better than the original one, they answer: “The owner of that business is a complete goat!” Of course, those leaders do not know how to run a business. And we are smart, and we will definitely succeed! Such homegrown entrepreneurs don't even realize the true size of the problems facing business owners. Closing their eyes, they rush to open their business. And when they realize how they got there, it's already too late.

...

EXAMPLE

At a training company I know, one of the leading businesswomen thought she wasn't valued enough. She conspired with one of the coaches. He was also of the opinion that the business was poorly managed, employees were underpaid, and the owner of the business was a jerk. Together they decided to start their own business. Campaigning among employees began. All this was revealed. And the sweet couple was expelled - along with another young employee whom they managed to lure.

Coach registered entity. We rented an office and started working. It was then that it turned out that making money with the three of us, starting from scratch, is quite difficult. And the office, salaries, taxes, accounting and everything else eats money, monthly and constantly. The "original" business used for this the funds left from the payments of the Clients after the payments to the merchants and trainers. As a result, the yield never exceeded 10–15% of turnover. Although a team of 30 people was engaged in making money. And where thirty people can hardly provide a ten percent profit, three are unlikely to be able to converge at all in a plus.

And so it happened with our trinity. They always needed more money than they earned. Quarrels and strife began. Six months later, the three "accomplices" broke up, pouring black dirt on each other. The coach tried to assemble the team from scratch two more times - both times everyone scattered. Less than a year later, he gave up the office. So another died promising business. Which, on common sense, should not have been created at all.

Konstantin Alexandrovich Baksht

How to ruin your own business. Bad advice to Russian entrepreneurs

DEDICATED TO MY FAMILY

A father who showed me how a man should live and die.

Mom, who supported me when I once again fell. And believed in me no matter what.

To my beloved uncle, who taught me that getting up once is not so important. It is important to be able to rise after a fall.

And, of course, Lena, Sasha and Misha.

I rise for you.

Introduction

They say that it is difficult to create and develop a business in Russia. Almost impossible. And that's the way it is.

However, the analysis of thousands of our enterprises led me to a sad conclusion. In Russia, the most dangerous person for a business is its owner.

Of course, they do it not out of masochism. And not because of sophisticated malice or insidiousness. Just trying to somehow raise and develop the business, they constantly make typical mistakes. Moreover, these mistakes are the same for owners of completely different businesses in different parts of the country.

CHAPTER 1

We create a business to become a business owner

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ISBN: 978-5-496-01750-3
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Business Book Description:

According to the analysis of thousands of Russian enterprises, in Russia the most dangerous person for a business is its owner. Many of our businesses are doomed already at the stage of creation. If the case nevertheless began to rise to its feet, then the owner can finish it off in a hundred different ways. Trying to somehow raise and develop a business, its owners constantly make typical mistakes. Moreover, these mistakes are the same for owners of completely different businesses in different parts of the country.

In this book, the author has tried to list the main rake that hinders the development or ruins the majority of small and medium-sized businesses in Russia. If you do not repeat at least these mistakes when building your own business, your business can already be considered exemplary.

The presented fragment of the book is placed in agreement with the distributor of legal content LLC "LitRes" (no more than 20% of the original text). If you believe that the posting of material violates your or someone else's rights, then .

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