Marketing for local businesses no-nonsense advice, personal experiences and lessons learnt

Try not to be perfect

Sometimes it can feel like your local business simply isn’t progressing.  Even though you are putting in long hours and trying to do everything right, things just aren’t going your way. 

Your manager forgets to put the new menu out even though you reminded him twice.  Your supplier shows up late, leaving you short of stock for a whole day.  A staff member calls in sick on a busy shift.  You constantly interview people just in case someone leaves at short notice, but half the time, interviewees don’t show. 

Problems such as these make you feel like your hard work is getting you nowhere.  It seems that, no matter how much you do, things will never be exactly as they should.

And, in a way, you are right to feel this way.  Things will never be exactly as they should.  Things will never be perfect.  There will always be at least one small thing that goes wrong.  If you are striving for perfection, you will never quite get there.

But the thing about striving for perfection is that your competitors will never quite get there either.  They have many of the same problems as you do.  Like you, they also have to work hard to make their business almost perfect.  And you can bet that they often feel like pulling their hair out too.

So when times are tough and it feels like things aren’t working out how you planned, just remember, you don’t need to be perfect.  You just need to be better than your competitors.