The Top 3 Mistakes Made by Businesses
By Jenn Clark
Welcome to ‘The Top 3,’ a new mini-series we will be periodically offering on our blog featuring different topics. This week’s focus: Business Mistakes.
Running your business can and should be a rewarding and exciting experience. Unfortunately, it also comes with unavoidable stress. The decisions you make in how your business is run, however, can help to ease some of the typical stress factors allowing you to focus more time on how you will grow.
If your company is not reaching or exceeding goals, you may be making one of the following mistakes:
Mistake #1: Me First and The Gimmie Gimmies
When we started this business, some of the following questions came to mind:
- How can we connect with our consumers/potential clientele?
- What services will we offer?
- Who is our audience/ideal client?
- How can we improve?
- What can we do to help our audience?
Only after these questions were answered did we ask:
- What about us? How will this shindig make our lives better?
Do you notice anything?
We thought about how we can benefit our future customers first then focused on ourselves. In order to have a business, you need a following; you need consumers; you need interest. If you are only interested in yourself and your needs, how can you ever expect to grow?
Mistake #2: No investment.
There is a time and a place to spend money on your business, and at some point, you may need to make a drastic financial decision in order to see improvement. How can you expect people to know you exist without putting some money into advertising, branding, public relations and your product or service? This can even mean simply hiring more staff so that you are able to actually accomplish more.
And it takes more than financial investment; you also need to dedicate time to your business. Don’t rely solely on others to do the work for you. Get in there and get your hands dirty.
Mistake #3: No room for change.
If you aren’t seeing development, it’s a sign you need to do something to change (as hard as that may be to hear). Whether you tweak your marketing messages, re-train staff or redirect your business plan, it is obvious that something needs to happen in order for your organization to experience improvement. With a stuck and stubborn mindset to do things the way you have always done them, you not only do not have room for change but also no room for expansion.
Take a moment to listen to others, to evaluate what you could be missing and to be open-minded. It’s a great starting point to reaching your goals. This is not to insinuate that you need to reinvent the wheel, but perhaps, just change out a couple loose screws.
What would you add to the list? Have you experienced this problem at your occupation? What did you do to improve?
Interested in learning how you can enhance your small business? Shoot us an e-mail to set up a brainstorming session!
