5 Business Mistakes You Are Likely Making
Introduction
If you’re starting a new business—or if you’re looking to grow an existing one—then you’ve probably spent a fair amount of time studying marketing strategies. That’s good. That’s important.
5 Business Mistakes You Are Likely Making
Unfortunately, marketing strategies won’t get you where you want to be. That’s particularly true if you make any of the following five mistakes.
Mistake 1: Being Afraid to Negotiate
As a business owner, you get plenty of opportunities to negotiate. For example:
- You can negotiate a better affiliate deal with a vendor. If you’re the vendor, you can negotiate better terms with your super affiliates.
- You can negotiate better terms with your freelancers and employees.
- You can negotiate for lower rates or other perks from suppliers.
- You negotiate good deals between you and your joint venture partners or even your business partners.
These are just a few of the most common situations where you may be able to negotiate with someone.
Now here’s the exciting part!
Most people never fully take advantage of these opportunities. Most people never even attempt to negotiate. They feel silly. They feel afraid.
But what’s the worst that could happen?
Someone says no.
Big deal! Life goes on.
And what’s the best-case scenario?
Someone will agree to your terms, and you will get a better deal. You could save or even make thousands of dollars depending on your negotiation skills. It’s definitely worth at least asking if there’s room to negotiate.
Now here’s the next mistake!
Mistake 2: Letting Negativity Influence You
No matter how solid your business plan is or even how well you’re doing, someone will always try to tear you down.
They’ll tell you your plans won’t work.
They’ll say you should go get a “real job.”
They’ll warn you that it won’t last even when you’re doing well.
It’s much more prevalent than you might think. Even some of the most exceptional entrepreneurs have encountered this negativity. Take Walt Disney, whose wife and brother laughed at his plans and told him that no one would be interested in the films and animated characters he was creating.
We already know how the story ended. Today, Disney is a well-known brand with theme parks, movies, merchandise, and more as part of its empire.
If Disney had listened to his family, that empire wouldn’t exist. And that’s why it’s crucial for you to believe in yourself and persist, even when everyone around you seems to be unloading their negativity on you. You need to let it slide off of you like water off a duck’s back.
Check out this giveaway training if you want more success tips to help you build the right business attitude.
Now, let’s get to the next mistake!
Mistake 3: Failing To Plan
When negativity comes at you hard and fast, there’s one thing you can hold up as a shield to deflect it: a solid business plan.
When you have a solid business plan, you’ve thoroughly thought through every part of your business. Here are some examples:
- You’ve figured out your target market and learned as much as you can about them.
- You’ve designed a sales funnel to know what you will sell to your target market.
- You’ve created a lead generation and conversion strategy, so you know how you will bring your target market to your website.
- You’ve studied your competitors to the degree that you know their strengths and weaknesses.
- You’ve looked for opportunities and threats within your marketplace.
- You’ve thought through potential problems and come up with solutions and workarounds.
In other words, you’ve chosen a business model and designed a plan for turning a profit. And if you do this, you’ll be ahead of most people who start a business. After all, if you’re failing to plan, you’re planning to fail.
Next up!
Mistake 4: Wasting Time
No one sets out to waste time intentionally. It’s not like you sit down at your computer at the beginning of the day and proclaim, “I think I’ll waste as much time as possible today.”
And yet it happens. You blink, the day is gone, and you’re nowhere near getting through your to-do list. That’s a lot of wasted time—and wasted opportunity.
So you need to focus on ways to make yourself more productive. Here are a few tips to help you out:
- Create and prioritize your to-do list. Before you go to bed at night, you should create a to-do list to know what you need to do tomorrow. Be sure to prioritize this list so that your most crucial tasks are at the top of the list. In other words, focus on those tasks that deliver the most significant results to you.
- Try productivity apps. If you have trouble with distracting sites such as Facebook, you may want to try a productivity app. These apps shut down all programs except your essential ones, such as your word processor. It forces you to focus because your typical distractions are inaccessible.
- Use timers. Sometimes being productive is as simple as setting a time for 20 minutes and working as quickly as you can for the duration. If you keep setting a 20-minute timer throughout your allotted work time, you’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish.
If you want more productivity tips, check out our productivity article collection.
And finally!
Mistake 5: Not Doing Market Research
Many business owners and marketers get product ideas, think the idea is incredible, and then rush out to create the product. But when they put the product up for sale, no one buys it. Tumbleweeds blow over the order form. There is not even a trickle of sales, much less a flood.
So what happened?
The business owner probably didn’t do their market research.
Don’t make this costly and time-consuming mistake. Instead, research to find out what your market is already buying. If your prospects are already purchasing a specific type of product in your niche, then there’s an excellent chance they’ll buy your product. That is particularly true if you follow these two guidelines:
- Create something better than the existing solutions. In other words, don’t just create a “clone” or a “me too” product. Instead, improve upon the existing solutions. Create a better mouse trap, as the saying goes. Put out a product with more features and better benefits than anything else out there.
- Set yourself apart from the competition. It means creating a USP (unique sales proposition) that tells your prospects why your products are different and better than the competing products. That is your succinct reason why people should buy from you instead of your competitors.
Conclusion
So now that you know about five of the most common mistakes that can derail your business, you need to take a good look at yourself to find out if you’re making any of these mistakes.
Chances are you’re making at least one of them. In fact, most new business owners make several of these mistakes.
For example, if you’ve ever had a day pass you by where you didn’t get much done, then you know the importance of productivity.
Or if you’ve ever launched a flopped product, you know why it’s essential to do your market research.
The good news is that you now know how to avoid these mistakes. And you can easily avoid many of the other top business mistakes too.
Do you want help in avoiding these five business mistakes and many others? Let us know by commenting below or on our social media profiles ( FB or Twitter). We can also share free training to help you on your business journey.
In the meantime, you can check out our other wealth-related articles. Thanks for reading.
