The Small Business Mistakes That You Do Not Want To Be Making

Running a small business is a journey, and in every journey, you expect to hit some bumps in the road. That is absolutely fine – mistakes and errors need to be looked at as a learning experience and something you can build upon and move forward from. However, there are some mistakes that you really do not want to have to deal with, and in this article, we look at those.

Photo by Tyler Franta on Unsplash

Trying to do it all yourself.

It can be very tempting as a new business owner to try and do everything yourself. Perhaps you have the confidence in your own abilities to sort it all out, which is commendable, or you are worried about finances. After all, paying someone else to do tasks that you feel you are capable of is going to eat into your hard earned profits.While you may think you have the skills to do something, there is probably someone else out there better suited to completing a particular task on your behalf. For example, you may be able to build and maintain a fundamental website, but does it look professional? You may want to consider investing in a professional website designer who can create a website to your exact needs and specifications.

This is not necessarily the case, though. If you have minimal time, as many small business owners do, and you are using that time to input data, handle admin or book appointments, you will have much less time to do the things that really matter and can help you to grow your business.  Sometimes, you have to spend a little bit of money to make a whole lot of money! By outsourcing some of these more basic tasks, you can use your time much more effectively. Outsourcing also helps where you simply do not have the skillset to do a job to an acceptable standard. Cleaning, for example, is a job that can take hours out of someone's day, hours which you likely don't have to spare. Therefore, bringing in someone like these professional hard floor cleaning services in Houston, TX, who have specialist knowledge and products they can use to get the job done, just makes sense for the good of the business. 

Casting your net too wide

Of course, you want to reach the broadest possible audience, but you also need to remember that not every demographic is going to be interested in the service or the product that you are offering. Do not waste your time on attempting to reach people who are just not going to engage with you, but focus on finding your niche and your place in the market. You can use tightly targeted advertising, such as PPC (pay per click) ads on Google to bring in potential customers quickly. We mentioned search engine optimization above, but it really is that crucial – investing your time or money into getting it right will pay dividends in the future.

Not realizing the importance of branding

When it comes to business, branding is essential. Consider how immediately identifiable big brands such as Google, Apple and Coca-Cola are, from their branding alone. It is not just the colour schemes and logos that you choose to use, although they are pretty important, but the whole look and ethos of your business. Quite simply, your brand is your promise to your customers. It shows them what they can expect from your services or products and what makes you different from your competitors. Before you consider launching any sort of marketing campaign, you need to define your brand and consider the following:

• What is your company’s mission statement?
• What is that you are offering?
• What are the qualities you want people to associate with your business?

When you have thought about your brand, you need to make sure it is integrated into everything that you do. This goes from how you answer the phone, to what your staff in customer-facing roles are wearing, to your email signature and your social media accounts. This is such an essential part of marketing that it is vital that you get it right and that may mean outsourcing the job to a professional agency, such as Climbing Trees.

Not doing enough research

While you may assume that you know what your customers want, do not make the mistake of relying on what you think you know. You need to know what they think. This means that you need to do your research and understand the habits, needs and wants of your customers, both current and future. Good ways of doing this are to set up a focus group, sending out questionnaires and using research from small business centers and trade associations within your industry.

Safety and security

All aspects of your business need to be carefully protected, from the physical site on which you trade from to the paperwork and documents and financial information.

Regarding the physical workplace environment, it is essential to carry out a risk assessment to check that it is safe for both you, your employees, your customers and anyone else who visits your premises. As well as ensuring that is a nicer, safer and cleaner place to work, it also prevents you from being hit by a lawsuit if someone was to injure themselves while on the premises.

As we talked about above, you should really be considering outsourcing some tasks. One such job is security, in both the physical and the digital sense, especially if you are handling sensitive or financial information.

In May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR_ came into force in the EU, which leaves companies liable for fines of up to £10,000 per breach of data. If you do not trade within the EU, it will not apply to you, but should bring home the importance of keeping data secure, and what could happen if data is misused or not protected.

Miscalculating Expenses

Generating strong sales figures is not the only way of making a good profit. Having as few expenses as possible can also be useful. Cutting them down is obviously one way of doing this, but it is essential to ensure that you have not underestimated them in your business plan. Be honest with yourself right from the very start when it comes to the expenses that you will incur.

Downloading some sort of accountancy software, such as Wave or Quickbooks can help you with things and stay on top of managing your expenses.