Anyone who tells you that owning a business is easy should be marked as a liar and cast out of your social circle. Well, perhaps not that extreme, but it’s a phrase that you should take with an absolute pinch of salt. Business ownership is littered with challenges that are going to trip you up and cause you to make mistakes. As a new business owner, you’re going to have to choose between facing up to the mistakes that you make with your chin up and burying your head in the sand. One of those roads leads to failure, and I don’t think I need to spell out which one it is.
There are plenty of ways you can make mistakes in your business, but once you have all the issues ironed out, the good things that come out of business ownership are obvious and they are many. I’ve put together five mistakes that are common with new businesses and how you can avoid making them yourself.
A Lack Of Research. As a first-time business owner, you should be doing as much research as possible into the niche that you want to become a leader of. There’s no excuse for a lack of research nowadays, seeing as we’ve moved on from heavy encyclopaedic tomes and moved onto the efficiency of the internet. You need to know your niche and you need to know your competitors, your possible costs and profits and you need to know that you are walking into your business idea with your eyes open and your brain switched on.
A Lack Of Budget. No cash? Well, that’s a problem. Everything in business costs money, from the managed IT solutions you hope to include to the office space that you want to rent. Even the utilities and overheads in your own home cost money, and if you haven’t budgeted your costs correctly your business is going to go screaming into the failure pile before you have a chance to blink.
A Lack Of Faith In Yourself. If you have spent time looking elsewhere for business support, you could be doing it wrong. Your investors could go bust at any moment, and you need to know how to rely on yourself to be able to propel yourself forward in business.
A Lack Of Social Media. We live in a digital world and if you aren’t harnessing the power of social media as part of your marketing plan, you’re not going to thrive. People want to find you online and they want to be a part of your business, but if they can’t find you, there’s no way of building a trust rating with you.
A Lack Of Pacing Yourself. Growth in a business is a good thing, but when you try to do it too quickly it’s a fundamental mistake. You should have big goals, but you should only reach for those goals when you are ready and not before.
Business mistakes get made often, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be caught in that trap!
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Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.