Top 3 Ways Landscape Business Owners Can Overcome Weaknesses - The Edge from the National Association of Landscape Professionals

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Top 3 Ways Landscape Business Owners Can Overcome Weaknesses

Everyone has weaknesses. If we were all born with all the strengths necessary to run a successful business, we wouldnā€™t have any daily struggles, revenue and profit would be through the roof and customers would be beating down our doors. Life is about balance; and while we all have our strengths, we must overcome weaknesses to maximize our success in business.

Common Small Business Weaknesses

Some natural weaknesses that you might recognize in your business:

  • 55% of managers are too busy to train or develop their sales team, according to bizcommunity.com. Yet, another study says there is a direct and consistent correlation between the caliber of a sales force and an organizationā€™s growth.
  • Forbes asked 800 entrepreneurs, ā€œIf you could eliminate one big obstacle in your businesses to allow you to grow exponentially, what would it be?ā€ The No. 1 answer chosen by 32 percent of entrepreneurs was: ā€œFinding and training the right people to grow the business.ā€ What kind of time and resources do you use when it comes to training and retaining the right people so you can grow your business faster?
  • Sixty-three percent of businesses say generating traffic and leads is their top marketing challenge, followed by 40 percent that say proving the ROI of their marketing activities is their top challenge, HubSpot reports. A weakness is falling into old, ingrained habits when it comes to marketing, such as sticking to only outbound strategies like cold calling and direct mail versus also exploring inbound marketing tactics like blogs filled with valuable content, videos and social media to draw in more leads.

Overcome Weaknesses in 3 Steps

Even though weaknesses are normal, the only way to tackle them is to identify them and address them. That way a weakness wonā€™t derail you.

Risa Mish shares 3 ways to overcome weaknesses.
Risa Mish

Risa Mish, a professor focusing on critical and strategic thinking, leadership and businesss management at Cornell University, recently spoke about this topic at the National Association of Landscape Professionalsā€™ Leadership Academy, conducted in partnership with Cornell Universityā€™s SC Johnson School of Business. She suggests these three strategies to overcome weaknesses.

  1. Get a little bit better at your weakness. For instance, if youā€™re a poor planner, start keeping track of your time, holding yourself accountable to that schedule.
  2. Use one of your strengths to work around your weakness.
  3. Partner with someone who has a complimentary strength.

No one is born with every one of the strengths and characteristics to run a successful landscape business. Use these simple strategies to overcome weaknesses and increase your chances of success. As Jeffrey Gitomer, American author, professional speaker and business trainer, says: ā€œObstacles canā€™t stop you. Problems canā€™t stop you. Most important of all, other people canā€™t stop you. Only you can stop you.ā€