People you should not go to for business advice

Lot of reasons were cited for why new businesses (startups) failed. According to Statistic Brain, the following reasons were given to why startups fail within the first year and tenth year of establishment.

• Incompetence resulted in 46% of business failure


• Lack of Managerial Experience resulted in 30% of business failure


• Unbalance Experience caused 30% of the failure


• Lack of Experiences in line of good and services, %11 failure


• Neglect, Fraud, Disasters had the least at 1%

This research work cut across several industries such as: Finance, Insurance, Real estate, Education, Health, Agriculture, Services, Information, Retail, Transportation, Communication, Construction and Manufacturing. Only 29% of start ups lived beyond a decade (10 years) after their establishment.

I remember mentioning in one or two articles I wrote on this platform that young entrepreneurs should have mentors (Advisers), having mentors help the naive to avoid the common pitfalls in business domain. 

Finding  mentors or business advisers is a process that must not be done in a hurry or carelessly, a silly mistake could make the whole business to cave in overnight. No matter how successful a furniture maker might be in his field, you will not go to him to inquire what your future holds. Nor will you go to a Cobbler to help you polish your career - he polishes foot-wears and not careers.

Many business owners just jump into business with shallow knowledge of what they think business is. They don't make adequate research, the lack of knowledge according to the Statistic Brain research is one of the managerial mistakes startups make and taking wrong advice from wrong people also contribute greatly to this failure.

This piece of article will enlighten you about the set of people you should not look up to for right advice relating to business. Going to them is like you aborting your sparkling idea before it sees the day light.

Don't run to these set of people for advice

1. People who have no experience about your line of  business: 

The best way to kill your newly hatched plan is to seek advice from people who don't have any tangible experience or totally inexperienced. You heard the popular saying 'Illiteracy is a disease, but half education is even deadlier'. Going to a fellow who have shallow knowledge are not the best to approach if you need real information and education relating to your business line, they act the knows-it-all role all the time, yet they know nothing.

2. People who are afraid to try new ideas (Overly Cautious): 

They are the set of people that are afraid to take a step further from where they are, they might have taken some steps in the past that failed or heard of people who took certain steps and failed. Due to that they become contented and just sit where they are. When you run to them, instead of you to gain from them they rather become a burden that you carry along and they will slow you down. It is just similar to life event when you walk with someone who has a form of disability, you will not want to leave him behind meanwhile he will keep slowing you down. If you are afraid of failing, you are afraid of succeeding. Try new ideas and take new steps.

3. People that are too nice to tell you the truth: 

A times being too nice is a bad thing, some people are just too nice to tell you the absolute truth. They fail to tell you the truth especially when they find great fault in your little dream. Instead of them to tell you directly, pointing at the loopholes in your plan so you can fix them on time, they just console you and encourage you to go on with the plan. They are too nice to hurt you with the truth that will come back to haunt you later. So be very careful of people like that.

4. People who can't see the future: 

This doesn't really mean people who are having eye defect, there are lot of  people out there who have pair of working eyes but fail to see good in all business ideas young entrepreneurs hatched. They don't have foresight, they do not see or have the ability to forecast what business will look like in shortest period of time. These set of people will keep giving you excuses to discourage you based on their failures.

Tips:

Here are few tips to help you ask the best business advice:

1. Ask highly specific questions, general advice is not your friend.


2. Find the right person. The right expert to ask is one who is knowledgeable about your question.


3. Ask multiple advisors exploratory questions. Ask as many people as you can find for their view on a true “jump ball” strategic question. When you get differing answers, ask why the others' answers are wrong. Ask how their own opinions could be wrong. Beware of people who say their answer is absolutely correct when the question truly doesn’t have a good answer. They are either naive or insecure.

Credit: Darlington