Starting a small business may seem easy to established businessmen, but it is a daunting task for new entrepreneurs. Unfamiliar with the intricacies of a new business venture, aspiring businesspersons face a plethora of challenges and often end up making silly mistakes.
Newly minted businesspersons assume that conducting market research is all that’s required to start a successful business. While essential, market research cannot give you the insights that come with experience. Although research and planning might provide you a foundation for your work, some core things can only be learned from time and toil.
In addition to presumptions about success, new entrepreneurs are often ill-prepared to meet unexpected business challenges. The business environment evolves in real-time, and even the most diligent and business-savvy individuals end up making silly, regrettable mistakes.
While its unrealistic to expect new businesspersons to do everything 100% correctly, several small mistakes can be avoided by learning from the experience of others.
In this article, we will shed light on five common mistakes that small business makes in their starting stage. These mistakes are:
The biggest mistake that refrains you from moving forward in your business is paying too much attention to your profits. Smart businessmen never focus on earning profits in the early years. Instead, they think of building customer relationships. While essential to the life of a business, profit has to take a backseat during the formative years.
We should remember that we can only get something when we give something. Since the world has become more competitive, we need to give something extra to our consumers to earn huge profits. For instance, Baskin Robbins is one of the well-known brands in the world. This ice cream brand gives a chance to every customer to taste the ice cream for free.
In this way, customers gain trust in the brand before making an actual purchase. It develops a relationship between the brand and the customer. This relationship is vital for earning profit in the long-run. If there is no relationship, then the profits earned by the brand are only short-term.
Ignoring Short-Term Objectives
Some entrepreneurs are called “day-dreamers” who are always thinking of taking their business to the next level. While vision is excellent, continuously making big plans without making provisions for them leads to wasted time and zero results. For new businesses, it’s more important to focus on short-term objectives that help you achieve your long-term goal. Every entrepreneur should understand that taking the company to the highest level is only possible when the short-term objectives are met on time.
There are no shortcuts in business. One has to spend time and energy on meeting the targets. Even if some of the entrepreneurs are successful in taking shortcuts, their business does not survive for long. Experts believe that entrepreneurs should go on the ladder of success with patience. If they show impatience, their chances of survival will decrease.
Spending Less Time On Building Relationships
The word “relationship” is not only limited to consumers. It also includes your suppliers, middlemen, and other stakeholders. Some entrepreneurs focus exclusively on building relationships with their consumers and ignore their suppliers. This strategy is incorrect; since there is a massive competition in the market, its essential to maintain mutually beneficial relationships with your supply chain and your employees. It not only ensures profitability but may also give you a competitive edge over your competition. For instance, a good relationship with your supplier translates into a discount or favor in any form that can reduce the total manufacturing cost. If the cost is reduced, the business can leverage it to get ahead of their competition by reducing product prices.
Similarly, if a business has a good relationship with their employees, they will see high employee productivity and satisfaction. Besides, a pleasant work environment is likely to attract the best-skilled workers and increase the competency of your business.
Thus, it is essential to spend some time in building relations with everyone related to your business. Some of the top-notch brands of the world have spent several years in building relationships with their clients, suppliers, and middlemen.
Lack Of Knowledge About The Minimum Viable Audience
The term “minimum viable audience” refers to a group of minimum potential customers who are willing to buy your product. Entrepreneurs should know that they cannot target a vast market right from the beginning; they must realize that in the beginning, only a limited number of people will be willing to purchase their product. Thus they should focus on their minimum viable audience in their initial stage. This group can be extended when the business gains tractions and operations to become smoother.
Not Focusing On Educating Yourself
Some entrepreneurs get so excited about their business plan that they think they are on the right path and do not need further guidance. It should be kept in mind that we do not know everything in our initial stage, no matter how unique our idea is.
There is always a need to educate ourselves at every stage of the business. Overconfidence is one of the most significant factors that can cause failure. Thus, one should always be ready to learn and should show eagerness to learn. This does not mean that you start taking classes regularly; entrepreneurs should educate themselves by keeping abreast of industry trends, learning about the practices of successful businesses, and investing in research and development. Reading books, articles, research papers, and magazines related to your field helps tremendously.
This strategy will also keep you updated about the latest happenings in your field. Some of the best books for young entrepreneurs include Lean Startup, Zero to One, Think and Grow Rich, The E Myth, and so on.
In short, we all learn from mistakes, and there is always some room for improvement. We should keep one thing in mind that success can only be achieved by gaining experience. Shortcuts can never lead us to success. There are a lot of examples in the world in which small businesses turned into big-scale businesses, and Carpet Cleaning London is one of them. With dedication, smart decision making, and continuous learning, the small businesses of today can become the conglomerates of tomorrow. Avoiding these five mistakes in the initial years can undoubtedly increase our chances of being successful in the long-run.