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Your small business started out great, but your beginning to get in the hole when it comes to running it. The reality that your business could fail is on the horizon, due to some major mistakes you are making right now. Poor market research is the beginning plus your business plan was completely unrealistic. Creating a terrible marketing strategy to connect to your customers along with financing your business with rocky funding choices is a recipe for disaster. Not enough or too many team members can also rock the boat. The final breaking point is the internal systems that control your business are outdated.
So, you have the perfect business idea and before you do the necessary research to look at who your customers are going to be, you dive into the deep end and start your small business. You slowly realize who your customers truly are not into your budding new product. There might just be too many other choices out there that they can choose from or your price point is out of reach. You also may have chosen a niche that is just too small to carry the weight of your business. These poor business decisions can put a halt to growing your business and may tank it. Therefore, a full detailed market research up front, will allow you to go into your new small business with eyes wide open and be able to make the necessary changes before you start running the business. This will lead to a better success rate. Finding your demographics and building a customer base is the bread and butter of running a small business.
Creating a business plan that will lead to a planned vision takes time so rushing through it with poor expectations will virtually crash and burn your business. This mistake could cost you your entire business. Within the business plan stating your vision, preparing a detailed market research report, the funding options, etc. will allow you as the owner along with any other investors and funding loan officers the correct projections your business is likely going to encounter. If missed this step will create a ticking time bomb that will let off an array of failures.
Finding the right funding for your small business is difficult at times when starting out but taking the deals that will set you back more than needed will surely stunt your business’s growth options. Funding your small business takes time to find what fits your needs for the future. Looking at all the available small business loan options, remember to look for things like cash back options, travel rewards including hotel and airline credits, along with a variety of other perks can allow your business to grow along with saving a ton of money on the things that matter to you. Looking at lines of credit and different business loan options will secure the means to grow without being left in the dust by your competitors. Funding is one of those necessary decisions where the wrong one could lead to closing shop.
The wrong marketing campaign can set the precedence for a failing business. You want to make sure you are delivering your business in the right light. Connecting with your customers and creating the need for your product in a very small amount of time like a commercial, print ad, or web banner, needs to be direct and engage their desire to buy. Also spending too much on advertising can also take on too large of a dent out of your budget without the return you anticipated. Shop smart and look at social media as your opportunity to connect to your customers on a small budget. Also research small marketing firms or contact your local college or university to see if they need businesses for their marketing graduates to help grow their resumes and builder their portfolios. Think out of the box to achieve the ultimate goal of connecting to your customers without breaking the bank.
Small businesses either run into the problem of understaffing or over staffing their new business venture and this can cause a disaster to unfold before your eyes. You don’t want to run around and be the one man show so you don’t have time to grow and connect with your customers. You also don’t want to pay for a staff that’s sitting and not doing enough work either. Think about using a staffing service in the beginning or in times of high demand. This can fill the shoes of the extra workflow, while not committing to that position full time. It also allows you to fill the position with someone you have trained in that position and see if they are the right fit. Going into hiring staff mode slowly can help you determine where you need the help.
When you have the back-office systems that runs your business and it’s running slow or constantly crashing, this can cause data to be lost or cause extra hours logging the data manually costing you more money. Updating your accounting, sales, payroll, and inventory systems will provide a solid financial account of where you are always. Your employees and vendors will be paid correctly and will avoid any costly mistakes.
Running a small business is hard work. My mom always used to say it may take a little extra effort to do it right the first time rather than failing and having to do it again. Take that extra step and make sure you are not rushing through from one idea to the next and laying out the ultimate business plan will guide you in a direction away from high risk dangers and mistakes to your small business.
