You start a business venture and leave no stone unturned to make it successful. But then, you make certain mistakes unknowingly. What will be the result? You can incur business debt, and it may also reduce profit. Certain mistakes can make you bankrupt, too. Therefore, it is pretty essential to steer clear from committing these mistakes to run your business successfully.
Here are five mistakes that business owners should avoid.
1. Failing to make intelligent hiring decisions
To run a business, you will have to hire people. Even small business owners can’t do all tasks on their own. Choosing your team wisely can help your business prosper.
First and foremost, you need to get rid of incompetent employees. If you keep unskilled employees, the outstanding employees might be dissatisfied. You may recruit the wrong people. However, don’t delay letting them go if you want to be successful.
You may recruit a close friend of yours as one of your valuable employees. Then you share your company’s secrets with him or her, who, then, discloses them to other employees. If it happens, it may not be good for your business.
Therefore, even if one of your friends joins your company as an employee, do not share valuable company secrets with him or her. In the professional field, treat your friend as any other employee. He or she should perform according to the same expectations.
In your workplace, it’s important to distinguish between personal and professional ties.
2. Training employees to start their own business
Many business owners have experienced a situation when they train someone to be an excellent performer, leaving the organization to set up their own business.
Of course, you can’t compel them not to start a competing business. However, you can motivate the entrepreneurial employees to be intrapreneurial within your organization.
How do you do it?
You can encourage your employees to use twenty percent of their time to do something that would help your organization. You can also invest in their small ventures. By doing so, the employees will stay motivated, won’t leave your company, and your organization will also benefit from their ventures.
3. Not taking help from an experienced person
Most entrepreneurs try to build their businesses on their own. However, you need a mentor to build a business. Many successful business owners have agreed that seeking help from an expert helps a lot to succeed.
Even if you have the required knowledge to be a successful entrepreneur, it is advisable to have mentorship. Their experience can also help you avoid inevitable mistakes.
If you don’t know an expert in your field, you can browse through advertisements for mentorship services.
4. Paying heed only to sales and not toward lead generation
Many business owners do not focus on lead generation. Instead, they are only focused on sales. ‘Sales people’ either purchase the product or service, or don’t. However, the ‘lead people’ are an interested audience from where a future sale can happen.
As a result, a business owner must also pay attention to lead generation for potential customers in the future and future revenue earning.
5. Pricing your products or services too low
Often business owners make the mistake of pricing their products or services low to attract customers. Undoubtedly, low pricing attracts customers, but relatively higher prices can help protect your margins. It can also help to increase your brand value.
Experts suggest it is better to research pricing. You should set your price slightly higher than the average. To do this successfully, you need to offer a product or service that is unique and people are ready to pay a higher price for.
If you price very low during the start-up and then suddenly increase the price, your customers will think the price increase is unfair. This may cause you to lose your valuable customers. So, maintain a decent profit margin from the beginning.
One last tip to conclude the article: keep your personal and business finances separate. It means you should not use your personal credit card for business purposes and vice versa. Keeping separate credit cards can help you identify business deductions for tax purposes. It can also help protect your personal credit scores. Many business owners who do not keep separate credit accounts max out their credit lines.
However, if you face credit card debt issues with your personal credit lines, you can get help from credit card debt consolidation or debt settlement to solve your debt problems. It is advisable to manage both your personal and business credit lines efficiently
Author bio:
Lyle David Solomon is a licensed attorney in California. He has been affiliated with the law firms in California, Nevada, and Arizona since 1991. As the principal attorney of Oak View Law Group, he gives advice and writes articles to help people solve their debt problems. You can connect with him at Linkedin or tweet him at @lyle_solomon