However, there are a few common cases where you may be doing more harm than good, despite all those efforts! Here are five examples of things you might be doing that may hurt your business in the long run.

1. You work too much

The owners and bosses of any company are often the ones who work around the clock to get the business off the ground and keep it afloat. They have their fingers in all the workplace pies, take their administrative tasks home with them and typically think about the business in every waking moment.

If that sounds like you, you might be burning yourself out. It's not a sustainable workload and may result in mistakes, underwhelming work and losing interest in the work you used to love so much. Be sure to delegate tasks wherever possible and take breaks.

2. You don't show employees your appreciation

Show all employees appreciation of their work, and make a special effort to reward the overachievers.

In any company, there will always be a range of employees, from the ones who simply show up and do the work to those who always go above and beyond your expectations and requirements.

Be sure to show all employees appreciation of their work, and make a special effort to reward the overachievers. A small payrise, benefits or other perks are good ways of ensuring they stick around and don't lose that impressive work ethic that's helping your business to thrive.

3. You promise too much

When it comes to customer management, it pays to under-promise and over-deliver.

If you promise to finish a job extremely quickly, do it all under budget or make other suggestions you can't fulfil, your clients will only be left feeling disappointed – even if you still manage to finish the job quickly or for a very reasonable price. Instead, give yourself more time than you'll think you'll need and be realistic with your quotes to ensure any surprises for the client are good ones.

Many clients won't make a complaint even if they're unhappy with some aspect of the job, so asking for feedback will help ensure you know about any issues. While some problems are unavoidable, as certain clients will always find something to complain about, there may be a few issues that you can improve on.

Take it all with a grain of salt, make necessary changes to you business model and practices, then continue asking for feedback from future clients to double check that the issue doesn't come up ever again.

5. You accept more work than you're capable of

It's more than a little bit tempting to accept every job that comes up, and while this is certainly great for business if you have the capacity to do it all, it may hurt you if you don't.

Be sure to know how much you and your team are realistically capable of. Should you accept too many jobs, you may be stretched too thinly to complete them all on time and to an excellent standard, which could hurt your reputation. Instead, take on as much as you can and ensure each one is finished to your high expectations, and offer clients the option of you getting in touch when you do have more availability.

January 11, 2017

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