16 ways to sabotage your business
By Jenny C. McCune • Bankrate.com

Companies of all sizes can trip themselves up. It's easier and more common than most owners think.

When smaller companies sabotage their sales, the cost can be dramatic. These ventures generally have a smaller margin for error as well as a thinner profit margin.

Here are 16 sure-fire ways to lose business.

1. Make it impossible for the customer to reach you.
Make customers, both those who want to place an order and those with questions or complaints about an existing one, spend an inordinate amount of time on hold. Want to make it worse? Give them automated instructions (push "1" to leave a message) that lead to dead ends (a recording noting the voice mail box is full). Be sure there's no way for the client to ever talk to a real person. If you offer customers online contact options, have a problematic mail server that is constantly down, bouncing e-mail messages back to the sender.

2. Have a complicated phone system that is difficult to navigate.
Trap your calling customers in voice mail hell. (This is the first cousin to your efforts to stymie contact in the first place.) "Be sure you have the latest and greatest technology on your phone system," says Gene Fairbrother, president of MBA Consulting in Coppell, Texas. "Lots of voice mail options, mailboxes and ways callers can move around the system without having to talk to a real live person. Don't forget to put a big, long promotional message first -- what times you are open, what time you close, what your address is, what number to call if someone wants to send a fax, when your birthday is, where you plan to go on your next vacation."

3. Don't deliver on time.
When time is of the essence, make sure the order isn't even processed until after the shipment date has passed. This is a great way to ensure that folks won't do repeat business with your company. Consider slipshod inventory. That way you won't even have the product on your shelves, further delaying delivery. A bonus: Customers will share their bad experiences with others who won't even bother to order from you the first time. Alienated customers and could-have-been customers abound!

4. Don't listen to your customers.
"Don't ask your customers what they think," Fairbrother warns. "First of all, you know your business better than they do. Second, they might tell you something you don't want to hear."

5. Operate on the premise that you and your employees are always right.
"Don't admit your errors to your customers," says Linda Pinson, Tustin, Calif.-based author and developer of business planning software. After all, most customers will forgive anything if you just admit you made a mistake. So don't bother. Instead, put the blame on the buyer.

6. Don't bother reading contract fine print.
And don't hire a lawyer to do it for you either, says Pinson. If you look too closely, you just might find a legal loophole that will let your business partner off the hook. Or there may be language that will make it impossible for you to get out of the contract no matter how unfair it is. And, of course, if you don't know what's in the contract, you'll have the added surprise of discovering it will cost you a lot of money you weren't expecting to pay.

7. Don't waste your time marketing and advertising.
Who needs all that bothersome shopping traffic? "It's not like you'll find a customer within 24 hours," Fairbrother says. "It could take you six months. So wait until the last minute and then wonder why you don't have any money coming in."

8. Ignore accounting.
"It's boring and who needs to know how your business is doing," Fairbrother says.

9. Ignore all those Internal Revenue Service letters.
You'll probably be getting plenty of mail from Uncle Sam if you follow rule number 10. "Sooner or later they'll get tired of sending you letters and will go away," Fairbrother says. Taking with them all your assets to cover back taxes.

10. Think that if you change the sign, the problem's solved.
Pam Harper, author of Preventing Strategic Gridlock, calls this the marquee roadblock. If the marquee says "The Fellowship of the Rings: The Two Towers," but "Adaptation" is playing, that signals trouble, Harper says. She cites a company that put out a sign proclaiming "We Care About Our Customers," but then did nothing to improve customer service -- no added staff, no employee training. "So their service didn't improve at all," Harper says.

11. Blame all your business troubles on external issues.
An economic downturn or uncertain world events are the real reasons your business is slumping. Things will eventually change, so don't bother trying to make improvements before then. "Remember the reason for the slowdown in business is all because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack," Fairbrother says. "Everyone is feeling the crunch, so if you just hold on and don't do anything, everything will cycle back in due time."

12. Take time off regardless of how your business is doing.
"Get out there and play some golf or tennis," Fairbrother says. "Take long weekends, come in at 10 a.m. and get out by 1 p.m. Don't waste time in the office. That's what employees are for."

13. When things get slow, spend time on personal tasks.
This is a favorite survival strategy of the owners of doomed home-based businesses, according to Mark LeBlanc, president of Small Business Success in La Jolla, Calif. "If you know the story plot line on 'All My Children' or laundry becomes one of your high-value activities of the day, you are in trouble," LeBlanc says.

14. Don't bill or collect on time.
On top of that, complain to your customers about late payments, especially if you haven't even sent them a bill. After all, you don't need the money, LeBlanc says.

15. Use "organizational surgery" to solve your businesses problems.
This method requires you to shut down a division that doesn't pay or fire your sales director because sales are off. Such "management by lobotomy" usually doesn't solve the root problem, says author Harper. "The problem with trying to solve problems this way is that the problem persists or even gets worse after the cuts and terminations," Harper says. So don't look for the real reasons your product isn't moving in the marketplace. Just start madly slicing and dicing your company.

16. Act now, think later.
This is a favorite management strategy of entrepreneurs, Harper says. Closely related to organizational surgery, it requires you to forgo analyzing your company's problems. Don't waste time trying to figure things out, just get moving! Act for the sake of action.

Follow these 16 tips and it won't be long before you won't have a company to worry about. It will go under and you'll have more time to enjoy the finer things in life, even if you don't have the money to do so.

Jenny C. McCune is a contributing editor based in Montana.