Bad Business Advice: It’s Everywhere. What’s the Worst Advice You’ve Ever Received?

When you own your own business, people love to give you free advice. Unfortunately, not all of it is good, and as a business owner, you have to be able to sort out the good advice from the bad.

Proceed with caution if you ever hear any of these tidbits:

No one will ever care about your business as much as you. Sure, this may be true to a point, but it’s also up to the business owner to make sure his or her employees feel pride in their workplace. Don’t write off creating a corporate culture just because you’ve heard this advice. Instead, show what an impact each employee has on the company and its customers.

If you’re not hiring, you’re not growing. A lot of business owners get caught up in the need to hire, but the truth is that slow and steady usually wins the race. In fact, just because your business had a great first quarter doesn’t mean you’ll experience the same type of sales throughout the year. Monitor your business’ sales cycles and staff appropriately.

Never leave money on the table. Especially when you’re starting out, it can be tempting to want to chase down every deal, but be careful not to overextend yourself or your skillset. You’ll lose precious time – and sanity – trying to become an overnight expert on something, just for the sake of those few precious bucks. You also run the risk of really disappointing your client and ruining your reputation.

When you’re in business, you have to drop everything for your work. Being in business requires more sacrifice than normal 9-5 jobs. You may be working longer hours or be experiencing higher levels of stress, but this doesn’t need to be a requirement for being in business for yourself. The most successful owners know that they need downtime to reflect on their business’ path, unplug, or just stay connected with their friends and family. See our recent blog post on the things successful people do on the weekend for a start.

What about you? What’s the worst business advice you’ve ever received? Did someone doubt your idea for a product? Question your management style? Or laugh at your vision? We’d love to hear it!