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5 Common Small Business Mistakes to Avoid for Long-Term Success
Everyone is capable of making mistakes, even experienced entrepreneurs. While you can’t avoid making mistakes, you can plan for them. This blog will walk you through some of the most common mistakes, and give your business the best chance of success.
Not writing a business plan
Writing a business plan is the most important step of creating your business and not thinking it through might cost you everything. No one particularly enjoys this planning stage but without it you won’t have a roadmap to guide you from where you are now to where you want to be.
Avoid this common mistake by creating a business plan to help identify your future steps and where your business lacks work. How will you deliver your products? How will you prepare for your workshops? Who are you selling to?
Not focusing on profits
At first, you need to be fully aware of the market prices and your audience’s demands. Then you need to pay attention to your business’ expenses and the revenue. This step is very important as it determines if your business is profitable or it is actually costing you money.
One formula that is very simple will help you with this:
Profit = Demand x (Revenue – Expenses)
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, most microbusinesses cost around $3,000 to start, while most home-based franchises cost $2,000 to $5,000. This is why you should always pay attention to your expenses and make sure to make profits to recover them.
Not knowing your target audience
When you first plan for your business you might create a buyer persona but you may then discover that after you’ve made some sales, your buyer persona changed completely. Continuing to focus on users just because you originally identified them as potential customers will likely lead to lower returns.
Once you’ve made some sales, adjust your buyer personas and figure out what kinds of customers are most valuable to your business. If you’re a service-based business and interact closely with your clients, it’s also good to consider who you enjoy working with.
Adding too many products to your store
Sometimes when you first open a business and you feel that it’s not going well or that the sales are not increasing you may think that adding more and more products will resolve the issue.
Imagine you have a clothing store and no one is buying from you as you were planning, so you go to your supplier and start getting more and more products that are not really related to your brand’s style.
The error here is more of a branding error than a product error. Building a brand is just as important as the products you sell, since your brand is how people perceive your business.
Not investing in organic marketing
One mistake that a lot of new businesses make is to focus only on paid ads and don’t give much attention to organic marketing. According to one study, 53% of web traffic comes from organic search, while only 27% comes from paid ads.
It brings customers to your business naturally over time. Organic marketing also convinces search engines that your website is relevant to what your audience is looking for.
This is why you should not neglect organic ranking as it can last much longer than a paid ad ranking.
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From this moment we will work together to complete successful deals and create a unique experience for your customers. Whatever problems you face, we provide you with integrated solutions that will help you start your e-commerce.