seolounge
Many entrepreneurs make mistakes along the path to success – it’s to be expected! When you’re running a small business, you likely don’t have much time, and it can be difficult to do everything right.
Luckily, there are some common mistakes you can learn to avoid. Even if it seems like a lot of effort to start changing your methods using the below points, you’ll soon see growth in your business and find running it much easier.
Here are nine common mistakes small business owners make:
1. Not having a business plan
A business plan is a guide to help you set goals, strategise for the future, and decide on steps to take now that will lead to long-term business growth. With a strong business plan, you can make decisions about what type of business structure is best for your company.
Everyone’s business plan will look different and include different information, but there are some key aspects to ensure you include. The first step is to define what success looks like for your company.
What’s your long-term vision? How do you foresee the business changing over the next 1, 5, and 10 years? Consider the strategies you need to put into place to reach this idea of success. Some uncomfortable changes might have to be made in the business now for the benefit of the business’s future.
Even a simple one-page business plan is a great start. Having something is better than nothing.
2. Not prioritising employees
Small businesses are constantly juggling the needs of their employees and the needs of their customers. It can be difficult to know when and how to prioritise one over the other, but it’s important that you learn this balance. Keeping employees happy will encourage better results from their work, and create a better environment for the entire team – including yourself!
Ask yourself questions such as:
- What is each employee’s standout skill?
- Do employees have enough, or too much, work?
- Are they clear on the business’s priorities?
- Do they have a healthy work/life balance?
- Which tasks does each employee enjoy doing?
- Is there any training that could benefit employees, individually or as a team?
3. Not prioritising customers
Great customer service, for many businesses, is one of the most important goals to reach. Neglecting your customers makes it very diffficult for your brand to gain any loyalty.
Most small business owners know that the customer almost always comes first. However, many factors can impact how efficiently customers get what they need from you. Even when you can’t give a customer your full attention (e.g. it’s the busy season and you’re understaffed), you should endeavour to make sure the customer understands the situation and knows they’re still a priority.
Solve issues for customers as quickly and amicably as possible, and always make sure they feel heard and respected. If there are problems, you’re much more likely to retain the customer if you solve them with a smile. You may find that you need to hire more employees for better, faster customer service. Although this costs more now, it will increase customer satisfaction in the long-term, growing the business.
4. Marketing ineffectively
Whether it’s a billboard, a social media presence, or a TV ad, good marketing can boost your business growth. Marketing ineffectively is a huge business mistake, because if people don’t know about your business (or trust it), they’re unlikely to become customers.
You may be throwing money into marketing without a clear idea of what you’re doing or what your goals are. Alternatively, you may not be doing any marketing at all. Although there are risks in marketing, the more effort you put into doing it effectively, the more likely you’ll make a good return.
The first step to marketing effectively is conducting research on your target audience, product and competition. For more on marketing research, see our blog post How to Research for a Marketing Campaign.
5. Setting unrealistic goals (or not setting goals)
Goal setting is an extremely important aspect of running a business, as we discussed in mistake #1 (lack of a business plan). So, how do you choose goals you can realistically achieve?
As a small business owner, you want to set achievable and measurable objectives that will lead you toward the ultimate goal: growth. A great way to create business goals is to use the SMART method. Is your goal Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timed?
Look at your business plan and see if your goals fit into the SMART method. If they don’t, you may need to spend time reflecting and reorganising.
6. Budgeting ineffectively
Budgeting is a key aspect of running any successful company. Are you effectively tracking the money travelling in and out of your business? If you aren’t, you might be spending too much or too little. Tracking expenses and income is crucial to planning ahead, so develop a budget that works for your business (and add it to your business plan document!).
You can hire an accountant or financial adviser to assist with this, or create/find your own budgeting system or software. This could be as simple as a spreadsheet with a column for income and a column for expenses. The most important thing is that you have a clear idea of where your money is coming from and where it is going – and if your spending is effective.
Make sure you aren’t pouring money into the wrong places (e.g. bad marketing, overpriced office space, too many employees), and are instead spending in areas that bring more benefit and potential for growth. Alternatively, you might not be spending enough money. Putting money into effective strategies such as marketing or hiring more employees will help you grow the business, so avoid being too frugal.
7. Not delegating work
As a small business owner, it can be hard to give work to others – even professionals – because you want to save money and make sure everything is done to your standard. Sometimes overconfidence can be an issue too; believing you can do it all, when you probably can’t.
Learning to build your team of professionals and trust them to get work done in a way that benefits the business is a key to growth. This might mean hiring an accountant, lawyer, marketing agency, or other contractors to take care of business aspects you aren’t an expert in. It may also mean hiring more employees so more work gets done, and your customer service is better and faster.
For more on time management, see our blog 6 Time Management Tips for Small Business Owners.
8. Not keeping up with target market and industry trends
Focusing solely on what your individual business is doing and neglecting trends can be disastrous. Unfortunately, with all the distractions that come with running a business, this mistake can easily be made. Keeping a strong knowledge of what’s happening in your industry and target market at all times ensures you don’t fall behind the competition.
Knowing what’s trending can help you keep your marketing up to date, and will show you if aspects of your business need to be updated. This allows you to create better products and services, and provide what your customers want right now.
9. Incorrectly implementing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Did you know that not every business needs SEO?
Many business owners pour time and money into SEO because they’ve seen the great results it’s had for other businesses. They don’t realise that there are business types SEO doesn’t actually work for. For example, businesses that require high levels of trust (more than just a website) and businesses within the commercial sector.
It’s important to determine if your business can benefit from SEO before you invest in it. For more information on determining this, check out my book How Does SEO Work?
You might also find that your SEO is failing because you aren’t doing enough. SEO takes a lot of time and effort, and may not perform if you aren’t giving it 100%. If you have determined that you want to try SEO, it could be worth hiring an expert to give your website the best chance.
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Are you ready to see if Search Engine Optimisation is the right organic marketing tool for your business? Pick up Georgie Hope’s book ‘How Does SEO Work?’!
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