Most small business owners seek advisors who can help them improve their businesses. They want advice from those who have the experience and really know what theyre talking about. But they can only benefit from the sound counsel if they listen to the experts guidance. Unfortunately, there are some entrepreneurs who arent going to hear the professionals out or follow a plan no matter what. At that point, experts realize that they might as well save their breath and hope that the business owner will eventually see the error of their ways before its too late.

When it comes to offering his advice, franchisee Sam Badgley is very up front with his Fiducial clients in Williamstown, WV. He tells them exactly what he expects and makes it very clear what they need to do to follow his recommendations. If he encounters someone who repeatedly ignores everything hes been telling them which is a total waste of his time, he then decides to cut them loose as a client.

Through experience Ive learned that when you run into somebody like that they are not going to change, said Badgley.

Trust gives you a great advantage

Where the problems usually occur between advisor and client is in the administration of the account where owners fail to deliver the timely data Badgley needs to help their business.

Ill get them to set timetables and set some of those goals or targets but they just repeatedly miss them, he said.

For those businesses heading for bankruptcy that have not heeded his advice, Badgley has suggested to owners that maybe they might want to work for another company.

Either they have never worked for somebody or they dont have confidence, he said. They dont understand that they could work for somebody else. I see the deer in the headlights look.

Badgley says that you can tell whether or not people are going to be receptive to change.

Most people who come to you are desperate, he said. They are in troubleits crisis city and you can pretty well tell whether theyve been there before and what caused it. They are always willing to change to solve the problem but you dont know if theyre willing to go beyond that.

Thats where experience helps, says Badgley, because after youve seen enough and been told enough things it all begins to sound very similar. He thinks that trust with any business profession gives you a great advantage because you know what has been successful with those types of comments so you can really cut to the chase.

Over the years Badgley has tried following up with former clients to see how theyre doing and whether they eventually came around.

By and large most just continue to struggle but for me its kind of frustrating, he said. Thats the challenge.

New stage of business development

Lisa Borgerding, a CPA and business advisor in Fiducials Arvada, CO, office cited several scenarios of clients who ran into difficulty by not heeding the advice of their advisors.

The first client is in the construction field and owes about $10,000 in payroll taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. Tack on penalties and interest and its easy to see why this situation is having such a great impact on their business. Borgerding noted that whether you claim bankruptcy or not, payroll taxes are not going to go away.

Thats one of the largest expenses theyre ever going to pay, she said. They just dont realize how serious it is.

And since theyve dug themselves such a large hole its going to be even that much harder for them to escape it.

Another client owns a repackaging company that also hasnt paid its payroll taxes. Companies can easily fall into this trap especially when the economy takes a turn and they didnt have the volume of sales they normally do. But when advisors put together a payment plan to try and right the ship, owners need to follow through.

Experts maintain that its difficult for some entrepreneurs to accept advice from others because theyve built their business from the ground up by themselves.

The reason for that is theyve had success using their own intuition, said Dr. Ralph Daniel, a business psychologist and family business governance expert at the Center for Family Business Dynamics in Santa Barbara, CA. Theyve done really well following their gut instincts while other advisors were wrong. They say why should I listen this time?

Entrepreneurs also fail to notice when theyve entered a new stage of business development due to some kind of major change in their operation that could have been brought on by such factors as new owners, loss of owners or major growth.

The owners dont realize theyre in a new ballpark with a new set of rules they need to follow, Daniel said.

Being hard-headed can cost you

Roger Bierman, a Fiducial franchisee relations manager for Alaska and the North Central and Northwest regions, says theres no shortage of procrastinators in the small business ranks who listen to what you have to say but never put the wheels in motion.

Some have to hear it many, many times, said Bierman. Theres an association between success and those people who react more quickly to changing trends and the procrastinators who just sit there and tread water.

For unsuccessful owners who procrastinate, nothings ever going to happen so they can grow their business.

Those that sit out there and dont follow a system are least likely to succeed but you need that to show it to the people who are doing things, he said. There is a difference between night and day.

Bierman has a close friend whos owned an asphalt and concrete business for 10 years as a middle man in various projects. He advised the owner to lower his prices but the owner procrastinated for two years on his pricing and it ended up costing him a lot of money.

He always wanted to run between 25% and 30% profit on his end but when you add that to the bill you get prices out of the market, he said. I told him if you lowered your price and get back to the 15% to 18% range then you would make it up through volume.

This example does finish on an up note because the owner finally came around and lowered his prices two years later.

Sometimes by not listening to good advice and being hard-headed it can cost you money, Bierman said. That happens to a lot of people. They continue to use bad practices and some dont catch it until its too late. Then they find themselves buried where they never can see daylight.

Personal fortune is on the line

No matter how strongly Fiducial advisors plead their case to convince clients, they can only go so far in the process.

Gene Polley, a senior business advisor in Fiducials San Diego office, has a contractor client who does stucco work in the housing boom thats just making money hand over fist. But until he makes some changes in his operation, the contractor is going to be paying vast sums needlessly to the IRS when Polley says he could have designated some of those funds for a self-directed retirement plan. He has recommended on numerous occasions that the client change his business entity from a sole proprietorship to an S corporation to protect his interests.

I guess hes just too busy to listen to my advice, said Polley. He has multiple vehicles but his personal fortune is on the line every time one of his employees gets into a vehicle.

Its frustrating for Polley watching clients throwing money away on taxes when it could have been put to better use in the business but he knows theres a limit to how hard you can push people.

You give people the experience of your years and sometimes they listen, he said. Sometimes they listen to you the first time but it varies from client to client. You still keep on telling them to do the right thing.

In dealing with clients of both sexes Polley has discovered that women are smart enough to realize what they dont know while men only like advice when things are going well.

When theyre on a downward trend they really dont want to hear it, he said.

Perhaps its the very strength that the business was founded on that is also its greatest weakness.

Business people are successful because theyre self-assured and have been able to buck the trend because they have this independent attitude, Polley added. They dont follow conventional wisdom in getting into the business.

But that sometimes makes it harder for the owner to listen and act on the sound advice theyve been given.

Dr. Daniel of the Center for Family Business Dynamics added that in his experience, the Rule of Three often applies to owners who resist advice.

They dont believe it until they hear the same difficult advice from the third person, he said.