There are many common mistakes that small business owners can make when their business starts growing.
Because when things are looking good, business is taking off and the revenue is coming in steadily every month, you’re going to be tempted to start expanding.
But if you’ve never scaled a business before you may be wondering just what you need to take into consideration, or you’ll risk finding out the hard way when everything begins to crumble.
If you’re a small business owner and you’re ready to start scaling, here’s 10 Common Mistakes Business Owners make, and how you can avoid them.
1. Not planning ahead
Most people – not just business owners, fail to plan in life. They take things as they come, and live in the moment.
In business, this is one of the quickest ways to go bankrupt and one of the greatest mistakes business owners make. Things around you are constantly changing, events around the world impact how business will go and it’s your responsibility as the captain to steer your ship in the right direction.
You need to constantly be planning ahead, looking out for anything that is a potential danger to your business. Are there rumors that a recession is about to hit? Is the President making some poor choices that may impact the cost of your goods? These are all factors you need to put into consideration, so you can anticipate and ready yourself for the approaching storm that may be coming.
2. No Goals, No Commitment
You cannot hit a target you cannot see. And when you’re aiming in the dark and firing wildly, you are going to miss your target 99% of the time.
Without a clear goal in mind, you will not have the motivation to continuously improve your business. You will drift along, taking things as they come and hoping for the best. And eventually, your business will fail because you aren’t putting in the time, energy and focus into helping it grow.
Set clear goals and commit to making them happen. Be very specific with your goals, instead of promising something that is generalized. Don’t say “I will improve next month’s revenue”, say “I will increase sales by at least 200% next quarter”.
Be specific and know where you want to go. You’ll have a much clearer image in mind of how to get there.
3. Ignoring technology
Technology is rapidly growing and changing, making things that were almost impossible before a reality today. As a business owner, if you are not making use of technology in your business, you are falling behind.
Tasks like data entry, generating leads and posting updates on your website are all things that can be done with technology. Technology is a useful tool that can save you countless hours on trivial tasks, giving you the time and freedom to handle what’s important in your business.
For business owners that are stubborn and refuse to learn how to leverage technology, my advice to them is to adapt and get with the times, before your competition uses it to run you out of business. Don’t have an old school, traditional mindset – one of the deadliest mistakes business owners make.
4. Not investing in marketing
You’re doing well already, why would you need to spend money on marketing?
That’s the mindset of most business owners who are already successful. But what they fail to realize is that they won’t be successful forever.
If you aren’t bringing in new business, you are going to slowly lag behind the competition. Your competitors are always looking for new ways to get more market share and take away your customers. If you aren’t finding ways to make your customers choose you over everyone else, pretty soon you’ll find them doing exactly that.
Don’t make the same mistake business owners make – thinking they’re ahead when they’re not.
5.‘One Man Business Army’ Syndrome
“I’ve gotten this far all by myself, why would I need anyone else?!”
This is especially true with business owners who have had to endure a lot of tough times. For them, they believe they can handle everything by themselves, because that’s how they got to where they currently are. There’s no need to hire people or create a team – they’ll only add more expenses onto the business.
There is an African proverb:
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”.
In business, having a team that you can delegate tasks to is extremely advantageous. Instead of handling everything yourself, you can delegate tasks to your team, which allows you to handle the more important aspects of your business, such as seeking partnerships and negotiating deals.
That’s why you see billion dollar companies like Google and Microsoft with staff from all around the world. They understand that in order to build something great, you need a great team behind you to make it happen.
6. Not Knowing Your Worth
Are you undercutting yourself and you don’t know it? Do you panic when your competition lowers their prices, and you feel inclined to do the same to stay relevant?
When you don’t know your worth, you are going to get pushed around. For example, let’s say you sell soap, and your competitor is having a 20% discount. If a customer walks into your store and complains that your prices are too expensive compared to the competition, someone who doesn’t know their worth will be inclined to match the price.
However, if you have something that you know is valuable, you won’t be afraid to stand your ground. You know your soap is made with organic ingredients that don’t irritate skin the way your competitors does. You also know that there’s no other soap store in the city that offers what you do. And if your customer doesn’t see the value in being able to shower without an itching marathon afterward, that’s on them for not knowing the value of a product.
7. Not Researching Your Market
How well do you know your market? Are you catering to young adults, or are you catering to 18 year old high school graduates, who are looking to enter college but are unsure what path to pursue?
If you aren’t researching your market, you are simply targeting a general demographic. With more and more ads being shown today on social media and popular web browsing sites like Youtube, if your offer does not stand out from the rest, your product will be ignored along with the other countless distractions your customers encounter every single day.
Get very specific with who you are targeting, and know your market inside and out. When you know them that well, you will know how to cater your product perfectly to their desires.
8. Spending Way Too Much Money
Your business is doing well and you’ve got a bit of extra cash at the end of every month. Having that money just sit around doing nothing doesn’t help… so you make a few purchases to help with your future scaling: New software, doubling your ad spend, automated sliding doors, bathroom sensors and even a newly designed company logo.
But when next month’s projected revenue is much less than what you thought it’d be, now all of a sudden you find yourself in debt, surrounded by unnecessary expensive purchases that you now realize you bought too early.
Spending too much money too quickly on unnecessary things can turn your business profits into additional business expenses that have no use or reason for being there as you are not in a position to utilize them yet. If you find yourself tempted to spend money on additional features for your business, ask yourself if it’s going to be used immediately to grow your business, or if you can wait a bit longer before it is needed.
9. Spending Way Too Little Money
Spending too little money can also be a problem.
For example, if business picks up, customers are pouring in but you only have two employees on the floor, you are going to have a problem. Your staff are going to be overwhelmed and overworked, and your customers are going to get agitated at the long wait times and lack of customer service.
In this scenario, the mistake this business owner is making is being hesitant on hiring additional employees. By hiring extra employees, you can process customer requests faster, allowing more of them to be serviced and as a result increase the amount of sales that are made.
You should always be looking for ways to invest money into your business to help it thrive and grow even faster. Just make sure it’s a smart investment.
10. Having a bad team
A bad team is worse than no team. If you are not carefully selecting who you’re bringing on board, you could be closer to failure than you know it. Having a bad team harms your business reputation, and destroys it from the inside out.
If you are going to bring people on board, you need to think about what this person is like. Find out their mindset, their goals, beliefs, their ethics, morals and if they align with yours and the business.
For example I know in many companies when they hire salespeople, they look only at how much revenue their sales team can generate for them. They don’t look at things such as their integrity, or morals. What ends up happening is that the salespeople are able to bring in more revenue as expected, but subsequent quarters their sales go down.
This is because the salespeople are not properly trained, and resort to pushy sales tactics to get the sale. Instead of building a long term relationship with the customer, they go for “one time buys” that make customers lose trust in the company and go somewhere else.
For business owners looking to increase their sales by hiring more salespeople, my advice to them is to make sure you know what kind of salesperson you are bringing onto your team. Learn from the deadly mistakes business owners make, when all they care about is increasing sales.
Summary
When it comes to scaling, there are many mistakes business owners make. Some mistakes have clear implications of what can occur, while others’ mistakes can be hidden and unseen until it’s too late.
For business owners looking for the most effective way to scale, my belief is that they should increase their sales. The more sales they can make, the more revenue is produced and as a result the faster they can scale.
High ticket closing is a skill that allows business owners to scale much more effectively. The ability to connect with people and make them trust you, allows for many more deals to be closed and establishes a relationship with them for potential long term business.
High Ticket Closing Is Not For Everyone
However, while high ticket closing can be very beneficial to any business owner in any industry, it is not for everyone.
People who do not invest in themselves, who believe that success is paid for and not earned, or gives up easily under pressure is not fit for high ticket closing. Like any skill, high ticket closing must be practiced and mastered for it’s full potential to be seen. If you are someone who would eagerly spend a large amount of money on a new car, but hesitate to spend the same amount on improving your business skills, it may not be for you.
But if you are someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to become successful, that understands hard work eventually pays off in great sums in life and business, then you might be a good fit for our newest high ticket closing program – HTC Platinum.
HTC Platinum provides the same type of community and training that develops great leaders and high performers – the same kind of people that use their newfound skills and influence to become celebrities and secure contracts and prestigious business agreements to set themselves up for life. If you’re ready to get access to business coaching and high-ticket closing to help your business scale at the highest caliber, apply here today.
