It doesn’t matter if you’re self employed, freelancer or if you work for a company, it is always important to stay professional and have awareness of what can go wrong in order to avoid negative impact on your career or business.
Here is the list of 7 most common bad business habits.
1. Procrastination
If you’re procrastinating, stop! It is the worst thing you can do. Plan your work, make reminders, set up an alarm clock, do whatever you need to do to not procrastinate. Emails will keep coming, blogs will keep updating, friends will keep calling. The important part is to organize your activities so that they don’t put your work on hold.
2. Laziness
If you want to kill your business, being lazy is the way to do it. It is one of the worst habits out there. It will affect your desire to work, which will make you put off deadlines, which will affect the quality of your work, which will make your clients leave you.
3. Not caring
If you want to be successful, it is important to be enthusiastic. If you don’t like what you do, it’s probably time to think about a career change.
4. Poor people skills
Another crucial quality is to have people skills. Completing the project on time is not everything there is to a successful business. Let’s face it a smile on the face, or making small talk don’t require too much effort, but it might make someone’s day. We need to remember that we work with people and not robots.
5. Being rude
Now this one goes right along with people skills. It is understandable that you probably think that everyone cares about the fact that you are having a bad day. News flash, nobody does. Clients come to you for quality service, not attitude.
Yes, sometimes we get difficult clients, but it is still our job to stay professional and handle them well.
6. Neglecting mistakes
We are all human beings and we can all make mistakes, and it’s ok. However, it is important to identify the root of the cause. If you lost a client, find out the reasons behind it, if you got a complaint make sure you do everything possible to not make the same mistake again.
7. Ignoring reviews
Most people like to get reviews before they buy something which reveals information about you, your company and the quality of the work that you provide. Having a bad reputation means losing over 50% of your clients. Make sure you always stay on top of what other people say about your business.
Chances are we all make these mistakes sometimes, the key is to acknowledge it and take the necessary precautions. If you have any examples, or just feel like sharing your thoughts, please comment.