When you’re starting your own business, it can be hard to tell which way is up most of the time let alone know the correct path to take the first try. As a result, entrepreneurs are subject to a fair amount of trial and error as they work to build their own businesses in a way that no others in the professional world are. When you start your own business, it’s up to you whether that business succeeds or fails, meaning that you’ll experience your fair (or unfair) share of sacrifice, commitment, and hard work. Being new on the scene also means that you haven’t yet learned firsthand all of the ins and outs of running a business and are liable to make a lot of mistakes before you hit your stride. Get a foot up on your competition by preparing yourself for these common mistakes that new entrepreneurs tend to make.
They expect overnight success.
Turning a profit as a startup is not something you’re going to likely see within your first year or two years as a business. Becoming profitable to the point where you aren’t scraping by takes a long time. You need to be willing to be patient and sit with your business and ride out the rough times at the start. If you walk into it expecting to make millions within your first month, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. You need to be honest with yourself about whether you’re viewing this venture as a get-rich-quick idea or one that you’re going to stick out through the ups and downs: if it’s the former, then you may want to consider a different career path.
They ignore the vast, potential audience that exists online.
Long gone are the days when advertising is confined solely to a newspaper ad or a television commercial to try and drum up business. Now, if businesses aren’t using social media to advertise their products or services, they’re essentially passively shooting themselves in the foot by not taking advantage of the opportunities that await online. Depending on your business, there are numerous platforms available that can help you achieve success: do you have a visual product that you can show off to potential customers? Use an Instagram or a Pinterest profile to showcase your work. Want to interact with your customer base? Set up a Twitter or Facebook profile where you can both share out information about your business and curate content that’s relevant to your industry.
They try to do it all themselves.
As an entrepreneur who’s working to build your brainchild into a reality, it can be incredibly difficult to allow someone else to come in and start telling you the right way to run things. However, you are only one person. You can only do so much before you’re setting yourself up for failure by taking on too much at a time. Repeat after me: asking for help is not a sign of failure. You need to trust the expertise of others where yours is lacking and use the help you’re given to truly be able to succeed. Otherwise you’ll find yourself burned out before you’ve hardly begun.