Famous Last Words Before you utter one of these doomed sentences, find out what you can do now to save your business from oblivion.

When I go on vacation, I take a lot of books with me. I try tomake sure that none of them have anything to do with business, butsometimes business lessons come from the strangest places. One ofmy vacation reads this year was "Famous Last Words" byJonathan Green. This sometimes funny, frequently poignantcompilation of deathbed quotations offers a glimpse at thecharacters of famous people as revealed by their final words. Myfavorite (as a business columnist, anyway) comes from showman P.T.Barnum, whose last words reportedly were "How were thereceipts today at Madison Square Garden?"

Whatever words you may utter if your business collapses (mostprobably unprintable in this column), the failure can often betraced back to some "famous last words" you once said, ifonly to yourself. Here are some painful examples:

"My customers will be loyal to me." Ask anysmall town hardware store owner who's had to go one-on-one withWalMart or Home Depot if this is true. While not totally dead,customer and brand loyalties are not as strong as they used tobe.

People won't buy stuff from you just because they'vebought from you for 30 years. If a new competitor is offering abetter price to your customers, and the cost of changing vendorsisn't all that great (for example, if the cheaper competitor islocated in a faraway, hard-to-reach place, people may continue topay your higher prices for the convenience of a shorter trip),people will switch to the competitor in a heart beat. By all meansprovide better service than your competitors, but don't counton that to save you--you should also offer the lowest prices aroundand keep your costs even lower.

"If I offer people something they need, they'll buyit." Amazingly, people don't always buy what theyneed, even if they know they need it, and even if they tell youthey need it. Example: Brussels sprouts. Probably one of thehealthiest foods on the planet, what with all the vitamins,minerals, and antioxidants they contain. Heck, they probably evenprevent cancer if you eat enough of them.

People are educated nowadays, and they're saturated withmedia telling them what foods are healthy for them to eat, so theyknow they need to eat more green vegetables. Nobody seriouslydisputes that. But when you're really hungry and you wantsomething quickly, do Brussels sprouts come to mind? Too manyentrepreneurs are out there selling Brussels sprouts to peoplebecause they need them, and know they need them, but are scarfingdown chocolate-covered peanut butter-filled pretzels whennobody's looking.

"I really don't have to market, because if I do agood job, the word will get around." People don't talkmuch about the positive experiences they have with theirprofessionals or service providers (but believe me, they talk longand hard about their negative experiences!). Also, peoplearen't staying in one place long enough to learn about localreputations. While your reputation is certainly important, itdoesn't get new clients or customers in the room. In anybusiness or profession, you have to get in people's faces andconstantly communicate what you do, how you do it and whyyou're better than the competition, in a way that doesn'tturn people off.

"My business has no competition." If you thinkthis, it's because you gave the marketplace a quick look, andsaw nobody doing exactly the same thing as you. Not all competitorsare obvious to the naked eye, though. Sometimes your competitionisn't a person or a company but rather a "thing."Book publishers, for example, compete not only with other bookpublishers, but with the Internet. Buggy-whip manufacturers at theturn of the last century had little to fear until the automobilecame along and folks didn't have to ride horses to and fromwork anymore.

Sometimes your competitor may be doing something entirelydifferent from you. A pizza parlor in a small town may have a localmonopoly on Italian food, but the Chinese restaurant across thestreet is certainly a competitor for the "quick lunch" or"takeout dinner" customer.

Sometimes your competitor hasn't yet decided to compete withyou. Back in 1995, Netscape dominated the U.S. market for Internetbrowser software. There were no significant competitors. But inRedmond, Washington, a guy named Bill Gates was thinking aboutgetting into the browser market . . . and the rest is history.

"I don't have partners or employees, so I must doeverything myself." Just because you're legally thesole owner of your business doesn't mean you have to doeverything yourself. Sooner or later, in any business, you learnthat there are a handful of things--five or six at the most--thatmust be done well in order for a business to succeed. They varyfrom business to business, and sometimes take a while to figureout, but they are there, and you must learn them.

For example, in my consulting business, one of my essentialactivities is to get written invoices out to my clients promptly atthe end of each month. I've learned the hard way that if youdon't get your invoices out, your clients don't pay you,and they're more inclined to haggle over your fees once thebelated invoice finally arrives.

Once you've mastered the five or six essential activities inyour business, it's critical that you do them yourself, becauseno one--not your employees, not your partners, not yourspouse--will devote the same level of attention to performing themthat you will. Everything else, and I mean everything,should be delegated to outside contractors, and their fees made acost of your doing business.

"If I make enough and sell enough, and there's moneyin the checking account, I'm successful." Youwouldn't believe how many entrepreneurs I meet in my travelswho truly believe you can ignore profits if enough people arebuying your stuff. Every business owner has to agonize over whathis products and services truly cost. It seems sometimes that everyday you stumble across a "hidden cost" you didn'tknow you had. One young lawyer told me how proud he was of howsuccessful his solo law practice was--he had literally hundreds ofclients--until I gently pointed out to him that when you factoredin the number of hours he was working every day to keep thoseclients happy, he was making only $10 an hour after taxes! Today heworks as a paralegal for a large law firm--a little less money, buta much better return on his investment of time.

"I can't really afford a lawyer, so I'm going todo my own contracts." Every business involves some form oflegal agreement. They can be as simple as an invoice form orpurchase order, or as complex as a 50-page property lease.Sometimes you draft them to be signed by others, sometimes othersdraft them for your signature. Every one of them, withoutexception, should be reviewed by an attorney before you use or signthem.

Let's face it. Few people truly enjoy dealing withattorneys, and nobody likes to pay legal fees. Yet unlike you,attorneys live with contracts every day of their working lives,which is why you should never trust an attorney who has 20/20eyesight and a gorgeous suntan. Attorneys know not only whatlanguage should be in your contracts, but what language has beenleft out that needs to be added to protect you and yourbusiness.

Even if you decide to draft your own contracts, using a legalform book or one of the "pay per download" legal formdatabases available on the Internet, you should always have anattorney review your work before you start using it. I can honestlysay in the 20-plus years I've been drafting contracts forclients, not once have I taken a "standard form," filledin the client's name and handed it to them as a finishedproduct. Every contract, even the simplest letter of understanding,needs to be custom-tailored to your specific needs.

As for the legal fees, there are tons of attorneys out therevying for your business. I guarantee it won't take you long tofind one who's willing to negotiate his or her fee, especiallyif you hold out the promise of a long-term relationship.

Cliff Ennico is host of the PBS TV series MoneyHuntanda leading expert on managing growing companies. His advice forsmall businesses regularly appears on the "Protecting YourBusiness" channel on Small Business Television Network. E-mail him atcennico@legalcareer.com. Thiscolumn is no substitute for legal, tax or financial advice, whichcan be furnished only by a qualified professional licensed in yourstate. Copyright 2003 Clifford R. Ennico. Distributed by CreatorsSyndicate Inc.