Every entrepreneur wants to see their business grow and prosper. And while dreams and ambitions are nice to have, they don’t always reflect reality for these visionaries.
Unfortunately, many small to medium-sized businesses fail to launch and sustain themselves after a few years of operation. This can be due to a multitude of factors, from low customer retention to high overhead costs.
If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur who wants your business to succeed, it’s in your best interest to be aware of common pitfalls in the industry you’re in. This way, you’ll realign your efforts to more profitable activities, which can increase your chances of having a thriving business.
Interested to learn more? Without further ado, here are some common business pitfalls you should avoid to give yourself a much better chance of succeeding in the business field.
Let’s reveal these common pitfalls.
1) Not Having The Right Tools
Businesses across all industries require a set of tools to help them perform their operations efficiently.
Without the proper toolset, your business’s productivity may not reach its highest potential, which can make it difficult to scale and grow your business.
As such, consciously choose tools that can help support and sustain your business. For instance, if you’re running a marketing agency, be sure to use digital tools that help you serve your clientele and give them optimal results.
On the other hand, if you run a restaurant business, consider investing in staff scheduling software to efficiently manage staff’s shifts. Furthermore, get the right physical equipment to ensure that operations on the ground flow smoothly.
For instance, a card reader and a robust EFTPOS system can help decrease the time processing each customer’s order, thus enabling you to serve more people per hour. Learn more about card readers here.
With the right tools, your business can more consistently deliver good results to your customers. Beyond that, you’ll also expand your business’s key functions, create a better experience for your customers, and enhance the productivity of your staff.
This, in turn, can contribute to the continued and sustained growth of your company, thus allowing it to flourish and thrive in the face of dynamic economic conditions.
2) Not Sticking to Your Business Goals
Every business should develop a comprehensive business plan. This plan’s overarching purpose is to outline your business’s purpose, long-term goals, and ways you and your team can achieve them.
If you haven’t made a business plan yet, prioritise its creation. If you already have one, ensure that you stick to it throughout your operations. Sticking to your business plan—and fostering a company culture that abides by your business’s value and long-term survival—is key to ensuring the long-term sustainability of your enterprise.
If you fail to stick to your business plan, running a business can feel aimless and chaotic. This is especially true if you fall behind your business goals, as this can indicate that your time in running the business is wasted or the economic conditions for your business’s success are no longer ripe.
To ensure that your business continues to thrive through its life cycle, always keep in mind the overarching business goal when making day-to-day decisions. A good goal follows SMART principles—which detail that a goal should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
For instance, a good goal is earning an X percentage increase in revenue by the next quarter of the fiscal year. By having a goal follow these principles, you’ll feel more compelled to create a strategy that can guarantee its attainment and completion.
3) Failing to Get Enough Capital
Another common pitfall for new business owners is failure to secure enough capital to run their business.
Capital is a necessity for every business type, no matter how big or small. And while small businesses naturally don’t need as much capital as multi-national corporations, they still need that bit of juice.
The reason why capital is so necessary is because it powers various operational functions. Some of the common uses of capital are for inventory, marketing, hiring, technology upgrades, and other operational needs.
If a business doesn’t have enough capital, its operations will be severely bottlenecked and it may not be able to scale to new heights. As such, entrepreneurs need to find ways to secure as much capital as they can without accumulating a lot of debt.
There are many pathways businesspeople can consider to attain capital to run their business.
Traditional bank loans offer structured repayment terms and access to larger amounts of funding, whereas personal loans are a bit more flexible.
Small business grants provide financial support without the need for repayment, but getting accepted for it can be difficult.
On the other hand, crowdfunding platforms allow you to raise money directly from supporters or customers—so if you have a marketable product, this could be an ideal way to go.
If you can secure a large supporter, you can go the venture capital route and get significant funding in exchange for equity and business growth potential.
In any case, being able to secure capital can be a great way to keep your business running for a long time. Just be sure that you have a strategy to be able to pay off any debts that you may incur from this funding acquisition.
4) Not Protecting Your Legal Rights
Another common pitfall small businesses may face is one of a legal nature. You may enjoy high demand for your product or service, but if you don’t have legal safeguards in place, a competitor can swoop in and steal your concept and you can’t do anything about it.
If you want to prevent that from happening, ensure that you have registered trademarks and IPs for your products. Moreover, ensure that you have legally binding contracts and documents to ensure that your partners, suppliers, and customers won’t pull a fast one on you and your company.
Of course, it’s essential to discuss these matters with a qualified attorney. They’ll know how to draft clear agreements and establish ownership rights in a sustainable and secure manner. In turn, this can help your business remain intact and difficult to penetrate from competitors lest they’re looking for a potential lawsuit.
5) Not Hiring The Right Team
A growing business is one with a competent team who can fill each other’s weaknesses. Don’t rush to hire just the first person to submit their resume. The wrong team member can disrupt workflow, cause interpersonal conflict, and stifle productivity.
Instead, be selective and vet your candidates meticulously. Don’t just look at their technical skills, but also observe their personality, their fit, and their motive for joining your company.
Moreover, don’t try to do things alone. To succeed in scaling your business, you’ll eventually need to trust and delegate tasks to your team members. Be sure to hire people who are trainable and will work with you for the long term.
With the right hiring strategy and proper culture, you can foster a workplace where innovative ideas are shared and productivity is met at a high and acceptable standard. They matter tremendously in supporting your business, so ensure that you hire and develop them to the best of your abilities.
6) Not Marketing Your Offering
Businesses can have a stellar product or service, but if it fails to reach its target audience, the entire business can fall flat on its feet.
As such, ensure that you have a proper marketing campaign to ensure that your business is within the periphery of your target customer base. Marketing a small business is a challenging effort that requires you to promote in multiple channels.
To name a few, social media, email, search, and third-party websites are some channels that you should consider marketing in to boost visibility.
If you want to tap into your local community, utilising physical marketing channels like posters, billboards, and flyers can also help keep your brand top of mind.
By being on top of your marketing campaign, and ensuring that you’re balancing the costs with what your business can allocate, you’ll more smoothly draw customers into your business and therefore boost its profitability.
