Whether you’re in charge of everyone or you’re the lowest employee on the totem pole, everyone faces both skills that help them and traits that bring them down in their professional life. If you’re looking to start up your career and head into the world of entrepreneurial and financially focused business, some of those traits that merely hinder small parts of other people’s day can be a career stopper.
While there are limitless ways your own mind can get in your way, there are three habits you can avoid in business that can make for a more successful career.
Lack of Confidence
It sounds too simple to be true, but it’s one of the biggest problems for everyone no matter what they are trying to do. Whether you’re in 8th grade and won’t ask a girl to dance because you don’t think she’ll ever like you, or you’re debating your worth to a company and being talked down in salary.
While it may not help to be over-confident, and does help to work hard to keep up, it also doesn’t help anyone to have a severe lack in confidence. This can hurt entrepreneurs more than most people when it comes to business.
An entry or junior level employee may under estimate their worth, but a CEO might be under estimating the worth of the company. It can also lead to not taking risks that could have highly benefited the company, such as plunging into social media or discussing a merger with a similar company, even if they feel it would be the best option.
This lack of confidence can also translate over into how the employees are treated. If the boss has no confidence in the company, it’s not likely he or she believes the employees have high morale or trusts their new ideas are in the best interest of the company. By being confident, those in charge can feel more trust in their employees and lead to a much better work environment.
Perfectionism
We all dream of having the perfect house, or the perfect job. Many dream of having the perfect spouse and living in the perfect neighborhood with the perfect kid. However, the majority of people have accepted these things can’t be a reality. The pipes will need maintenance in your house and your spouse will sometimes get on your nerves, but you’ll make the best of it.
Yet this same concept isn’t translated into business. If you can’t achieve perfection at home, it makes no logical sense to expect it in the office, yet it’s a constant goal for entrepreneurs. For the small business start up, the world isn’t going to end if your logo could be improved, and you won’t lose potential clients if your website has one typo.
It would certainly make for great business if you somehow figured out how to be completely perfect, but in the end, this isn’t achievable. Some clients you work with might even dislike your services, and sometimes problems will arise.
However, there does need to be a balance. Perfection can never be achieved, but preparedness and professionalism is a great goal. Rather than aiming to never make a mistake, you can aim to reach goals in the most accurate way possible, and set up safety nets in order to fix mistakes that may occur.
It can be easy to get caught up in details, especially when money or customer satisfaction is involved. But customers and clients aren’t looking for perfection; they’re looking for reliability. Apple products consistently get bugs or break, but the company is always quick to fix it and send out a patch or help customers fix what broke. They can’t make the perfect laptop that will never break, but they can guarantee to help fix what goes wrong in a timely and pain-free fashion.
Inability to Make Decisions
Just how well do you deal with those tough decisions you are faced with says a lot about how well your business is going to do. Ask yourself: how do you deal with tough decisions? Do you procrastinate and put the decision making on the back burner? Do you ask another person to make your decisions for you? Do you ask your friends and family for advice?
Before trying to find a better way of making decisions, you have to define how you already make them. Of course, this is true when it comes to facing any problem. If you’re the type of person who takes a long time to make that final call, what is it that convinces you in the end to go one way or another?
It seems simplified, but it works. Ask yourself how you make that choice, then try to recreate it sooner and stand firm. There will be plenty of times where you made the wrong call, but that’s all part of business. Missing out on big opportunities or stunting the growth of your company due to the inability to make a decision will usually hurt you more than a small risk that didn’t pan out.
Of course, there’s a limit to this advice. While it’s good to take the leap on a calculated risk, it does need to be calculated. So what do you do in the situations where your choices need some calculation, but you’re up against the wall? Some entrepreneurs like to go with their instincts. If you’re not comfortable being that risky in business, there are many consultants you always have at your disposal. There is plenty of research you can do on your own, but remember you hired people for a reason.
If you’re concerned about the money involved and have a CFO, they should be the first person you talk to. If this is a question about whether or not to implement Twitter into your social media presence and you have a digital marketing team, you should see what they have to say. Since your employees have worked more in the specific areas, it can do well to hear how they project a risk to pan out for their department.
If all else fails, consult a professional about your business plan and how this risk might fit into it. Some may charge you for the advice, but if you can’t decide what to do and find someone who has been successful in similar cases, it may be worth the money.