Mistakes to Avoid as an Entrepreneur

Making mistakes is an inherent part of human characteristics. Even those with the greatest minds made mistakes at some point in their lives. Whenever you start learning something new, say an instrument or learning how to drive, it’s obvious that you’ll make mistakes. Similarly, while starting a new business, entrepreneurs are likely to commit mistakes that can have short-term and long-term impacts on the business.

Making mistakes can be frustrating for any individual, it can demotivate you and, at times, can lower your self-esteem. However, always remember that everyone, yes, everyone, makes mistakes. So don’t keep bashing yourself for that one mistake that you made in the past. There is always a scope for making things better. Regret does no good, however, if you can take precautions beforehand, it can save you from a lot of trouble.

Here are some of the tips for entrepreneurs to be successful by avoiding the following mistakes.

1. Not collecting enough Data

The biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make in the beginning is that they don’t respect data. When you’re first starting, you start to move outside of your warm market, and the first job is to collect data. As an entrepreneur, you need to know who your customers and potential customers are. So try to collect the data from your customers in a way that doesn’t seem intrusive.

Once you have the desired data (i.e. the phone number, name, email address, etc.), start sending your customers thank you notes, information regarding events organised by your business, information regarding newly launched products, etc. Data helps you to design your product or service in a way that can help you to connect with your target audience easily and quickly.

Collecting data also helps in developing a personal relationship with your customers and building your brand.  So if you want your customers to come back and continually patronise you, you have to have a relationship that is not just limited to a transaction. Learn about them.

2. Reluctance in Hiring

Most small and medium business owners are reluctant to hire, as they look at hiring as a cost. Here is some advice for entrepreneurs who feel that way - keep in mind that building a team is an investment and not a cost. And if you’re carrying a notion that it’s a cost, it only means that you haven’t understood what it takes to build a successful, scalable business.

3. Not Hiring the right talent

Initially, entrepreneurs find it difficult to hire because they don’t have the right recruitment strategy or the right recruitment channel to get the right talent into their organisation. Due to this, most of them end up hiring incompetent people. So, another piece of advice for entrepreneurs or rather a businessman tip, is that they shouldn’t make the mistake of hiring fast and hiring anybody. It’s very crucial to hire someone who’s the right fit for your company; otherwise, it’ll become a liability and cause damage in the long run.

4. Not giving proper training to the team

Once you have hired the right people into your business, remember that your job doesn’t end here. If you want to get the best out of your team, then you have to train them accordingly. The people that you hire have the desired skills, however, it’s possible for them not to know how to apply those skills in a particular business. Thereby, making training an important part of the recruitment process.

5. An unrealistic desire for perfection

Entrepreneurs who are obsessed with perfection, want to do everything on their own. They avoid delegating the task, as they don’t want to deal with imperfect results. However, you should remember that you cannot build scalable and profitable businesses without a team no matter how dedicated or hard-working you are as an entrepreneur.

6. Not Marketing Proactively

It’s very crucial to market and sell proactively, thus, you need to put in conscious efforts in creating strategies in building systems and deploying teams in marketing and sales so that you’re constantly generating new customers and growing your business. If you are not educating your prospective customers about your existence, then your products will never reach them. Low marketing means low sales, and not generating enough revenue means inability to meet the expenses. And if you fail to cover your expenses, they become a liability. Having more liabilities than assets is generally not a good sign.

So you see, it’s all interconnected. Therefore, marketing products strategically is significant for business growth. Bury your ego, overcome your fear of rejection and let your potential buyers know that you provide something that others don’t. This is one of the most important business tips for entrepreneurs.

7. Not knowing your competition

Create a great product or a great service right from the beginning. Your competitors might know who you are, so focus on doing things that you can do better. Don’t do what you’re competitors are already doing, having some sort of advantage over your competitor is important. In order to for entrepreneurs to be successful, you have to be the best from the moment you start your business, and for that, you need to know what your competitors offer and how you can overtake them.

8. Trying to sell too many products

Focus on one product at a time, as selling too many products at once will be difficult to handle. Don’t get influenced by the booms happening in the other industries. Further, selling too many products may confuse your customers. The customers build their trust in your organisation only when they start liking your product or service. Providing them with tons of options can overwhelm them and make it difficult for them to choose.

Apart from that, initially, marketing two or three products is always more economical and efficient than advertising loads of products at once. Here is an advice for the entrepreneurs - Sell the product or service that you know well, as it takes time to understand every product or service. Therefore, starting small is always preferable, as it becomes feasible to test your products, which may not work out if you start selling everything at once.

9. Holding excessive inventory

This mistake is a subset of the mistake that we just discussed. You hold stock of goods, intending to sell the entire bulk. However, holding more than that’s needed, can be expensive. Surely, buying in bulk reduces your unit costs, but what about the warehouse costs or what about the inventory never gets sold. Possessing too much stock in the starting years is difficult to mana. Thus, don’t invest in the inventory more than required.

10. Not having a Business Plan

Another crucial tip for entrepreneurs to be successful is to have a Business plan.  If you don’t know how to write a business plan, you will lose track of your business’s goals. A business plan assists the entrepreneurs in making strategic decisions to achieve long-term as well as short-term objectives. It is a guide for entrepreneurs that helps them in shaping their business strategy.

Having a business plan helps in judging your performance, thus, you can compare your standard and actual performance. And if your actual performance doesn’t align with the one you planned for, you can always make extra efforts to perform better. A plan is made so that you can efficiently manage your activities. A business plan is written for a similar purpose, it exists so that you can manage your business activities in a better way. Good management of cash inflows and outflows is crucial for a business, and a good business plan helps you identify deviations and adjust to them.

These were some of the tips for entrepreneurs to consider while starting or doing any business. You can always learn from your mistakes. However, if you can avoid them before it’s too late, then you could surely have an added advantage.

Also Read:

1) Schemes Initiated by the Government to Help Women Entrepreneurs
2) 9 Tips for Young Women Entrepreneurs
3) 5 Manufacturing Business Ideas for Women Entrepreneurs
4) Secret Powers Of Women Entrepreneurs
5) OkCredit: Simple, Paperless & Secure solution for businesses

FAQs

Q. What are the tips for young entrepreneurs for building a start-up?

Ans. Tips for young entrepreneurs for building a start-up are:

• Invest strategically in marketing
• Have confidence in their product or service.
• Have online/digital presence
• Don’t spend too much or too little.
• Don’t take advice from too many people.
• Adopt a different strategy when the adopted strategy fails
• Know your target audience
• Perform extensive market research.

Q. What is the best way to identify a successful product?

Ans. Before creating a product entrepreneurs must observe what their rivals are doing and not what they’re saying. People tend to buy a better version or a modernised version of what they have bought before. If you want to know whether your product would be profitable in the long run, try testing it. Keep track of how frequently it is being used by the customers. Further, the key elements of a successful product are, the level of satisfaction it provides to the users, how efficiently it can be used, and how widely it is being used.

Q. How to choose a good business name?

Ans. Steps to choosing a good business name are:

• Before you come up with a name for your brand, you can consider the tips given below
• Keep it strong but simple.
• You can use a name that describes your business’s vision.
• Make sure that the name is not already being used by someone else.
• Display uniqueness and be creative.