I follow tons of blogs, so many that I always have a 1000+ articles to read on my Google reader page. But as I was skimming through some of those articles this weekend, this series really caught my eye. It’s a series that was done by Therese Skelly on her “Happy In Business” blog.  She ran this series over 3-4 blog posts, but I’m going to highlight the 3 mistakes here in one quick post for you.

Mistake #1 – This is really about your own self-limiting beliefs. Do you ever hear yourself saying any of the following:

“I’m not that unique…loads of people already do that.”
“What should they hire me?”
“I feel a bit like an imposter because of __________”
“I can’t charge that much, because _______(fill in the words here. It could be I haven’t been in biz long enough, haven’t gotten a degree, etc)
“If I don’t give away the farm, my customers will leave me.”
“I can’t say NO because what if that opportunity doesn’t come around again?”

These thoughts cause you to get in your own way. You’re limiting your potential by allowing these doubts to dictate what you do and don’t do.  You need to start thinking about any of these beliefs you have in a positive way. Why should the hire you – because you’re great at what you do. I can charge that much, because what I offer is worth more than that. Ask your current clients, talk to your coach, your mastermind group. Figure out a way to turn these negative thoughts into empowering, positive statements.

Mistake #2 -  This is about spending too much time on low-to-no income producing activities, and not focusing on those activities in your business that have a high-income potential. Outsource those activities that take up too much of your time and can be farmed out to someone for less money than you’re losing by spending time on them vs. spending time marketing or working with clients. As Therese says in her post about this – “set a goal to be working only in your brilliance and doing the tasks that you love and that generate you the big dollars.” I couldn’t have said it better.

Mistake #3 – Bad habits. Eliminate those bad habits that are holding you back. Here’s a few examples:

• Saying yes to every opportunity
• Following every guru and buying tons of programs (without getting a good ROI)
• Not following up with contacts
• Being in touch with your list only sporadically
• Thinking that you have to have all your marketing materials just perfect
• Getting swept away in distractions
• Pricing too low
• Spending too much time on FB and Twitter

Make a list of your top 10 bad habits, and then commit to a plan to change/stop them.

So that’s her list of the Top 3 Money Killing Mistakes in Business. If you want to read the whole series in full – you can find the first post in the series HERE.

Tagged as: Delegation, Increasing business