“One man’s mistake is another man’s opportunity”
We all made major or minor mistakes in our life. Does it affect a lot?
Yes! Sometimes it does!
But did you ever got any benefits or learning from these mistakes?
For me, I made lots of mistakes in my life, even starting very new entrepreneurship, most importantly, digital entrepreneurship without facing any errors is impossible!
That’s how an entrepreneur learns and grow!
But if you are in the business game, you can’t continue to make the same mistakes continuously. You have to play real smart to gain a competitive advantage over others, and for that, you have to be mindful of some fatal entrepreneurial mistakes that can kill your company.
Why You Need to Be Conscious About Startup Mistakes
It is certainly not an easy task to create a business from the root. As an entrepreneur, as long as you can learn about your mistakes and strive to stop them in the future, you will make a lot of mistakes and face defeats along the way. That’s how the majorities of business people learn and develop.
Running a business is all about learning and information acquisition. If you don’t want to understand, it’s just not easy to keep up with the dynamically changing industry. So, whether you have company experience or you are a start-up, make the most of the chance that makes you expand your horizon.
So, what are the significant mistakes every new entrepreneur makes? Which mistakes should a digital entrepreneur avoid?
Here, I’ll show you some common mistake entrepreneurs make to run a new business. Sometimes a mistake can be a learning for you, or sometimes it could be your most prominent reason for business failure.
Investing Less or Spending Too Much
Before setting up a business, you just need to do proper research.
When we start a business, we always care about money!
Because without money, we can’t set a goal to achieve something in high.
So, in reality, money matters a lot.
But did you think about having a lot of money to run a business, why you fail to run it successfully?
A straightforward but effective answer is, You are investing less or spending too much money.
Suppose your business needs some application to store authorised data of your company, which is costly and premium. But you need this immediately. Instead of buying that application, your company brought brand new pieces of furniture for your company.
Do you think it will never hamper in your business!
You should invest in the right things, even if the investment is costly, and you should minimise your spending and need to skip the unnecessary spending amount.
Thinking You Have No Direct Competitors
The biggest mistake a startup made is to think that there is no competitor in the market, and only they are the best.
But is it possible?
Can you remember the history of Nokia company, Nokia was the heart of the mobile company? Nokia had many well-planned features to come shortly, and everyone was working happily to keep “Connecting People.”
When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007, Nokia didn’t care about it.
And that’s was the biggest mistake that Nokia had made.
Now it’s 2021, how many mobile companies competitors will you get now?
Competitors understand your business the best.
So, never make a decision or proposal as lightly as Nokia made before, take your competitors more seriously than ever. A real competitor works the hardest, cares the most, and makes the best of what they have.
Not Setting Attainable Goals
“A plan without a further goal is only a dream!”
Setting your goal always keeps your dream ups and do visual planning that supposes to be a reason for massive success. A little progress each day adds up to significant results on your every step.
But a new entrepreneur always makes this decision rough and tough!
They consistently make this mistake when it’s about setting a goal. Most of the newly startups make a massive mistake of setting and stick to their goals, and because of that, they lost their attainable direction.
So, what are the benefits of having a goal when you are way enough to run a business-
- Achievable targets include guidance and focus.
- Achievable expectations provide a feeling of personal achievement.
- Achievable targets help sustain motivation, primarily through setbacks.
- A realistic target helps consumers to prioritise improvements.
- An attainable goal sets a realistic schedule for target achievement.
- Attainable targets give a clearer picture of priorities.
Effects of No Marketing
Suppose that, you have a great plan to run your business, what types of business you want to run, what types of product you want to sell everything is under your plan, but the essential thing you forget every single time is- MARKETING!
Without marketing, how can you think about sales, profit and handling a master plan profitable business!
Marketing is not about the stuff that you make, it’s about the stories you tell
So, make your marketing strategy so useful that people would pay for it.
If you research 2021’s global market, you’ll get to know that many companies are brilliant with their marketing strategy.
When you look at- Red Bull, Airbnb, McDonald’s, Coca-cola, and other companies that always hit their product, you should watch their marketing level. They express their marketing with high level thought and executed what customer expect from them.
So, learn from their marketing strategy, establish high-quality marketing ads, content that people love to connect, and remember that the first impression is the last impression.
Think of Doing All Yourself
Did you ever think of starting a business without human resources? Is it really possible to go a long way only with yourself and your business?
If you think of that, you must be in a daydream! Wake up now!
Being a new entrepreneur is cool, but when you think of doing your business alone, you must need to change your planning as fast as possible. Because when you are busy with your business planning, you need someone who will execute your planning with their working capability.
Understand your strengths, skills and time available for everything. And most importantly a person never will be good at every sector.
Consider about an IT firm, do you ever see an IT company with a single employee?
There are many expectations that their client wants to get from an IT firm, but can you provide all of their expectations with one person’s work?
Someone is always good at designing; someone is good at content writing; someone is good at management.
Everyone has their own limitation and skill that will make a business successful.
So, never think of doing a business all yourself, without any manpower!
‘IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME’ ONLY HAPPENS IN THE MOVIES
Does this quote “If you build it, they will come” exist in real life?
This phase is the only popular from a movie, and you will never get everything in reality that a film shows you. Who wants to start a startup business, that phase is an absolute disaster for them.
Remember it again; that never comes in real life!
Just because you’re building something which can be a master plan business, that doesn’t mean you’ll get all expected success in your life.
Any business will run successfully with customers feedback, so building a business is not a big deal, the real fact is you need to develop the strategy to drive your business long way.
A novice entrepreneur always has Zero knowledge about the business strategy, plan execution and many more. If they think of taking the advice from a traditional business owner, it must be a 50/50 win-win situation to achieve desired success.
Why I’m saying that?
You’re living in 2021 where entrepreneurship is going to the market platform in another level.
You know how technology ruling today’s world. So you need to take your business digitally, not traditionally.
But how?
To learn about more digital entrepreneurship, you have to know the digital plan of action. You will find a few digital entrepreneurs who will give you all advice, but the quantity is a FEW!
I’m Hemi Hossain, digital marketing coach and digital entrepreneur in Melbourne. I’ll assist you with building your awaited magnet of success become a digital entrepreneur.
No Networking
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Most of our business fails because of setting high-level “Networking” with business to business, with people to business and with business to customer.
Sometimes we all avoid this essential term which can be a depth sea of success.
I am adding an example to visualise how networking can affect your business!
Think about KFC, the famous brand in India, Bangladesh and other countries. Were they an individual brand by themself?
Absolutely no!
KFC became a successful brand worldwide with their Networking, instead of building a brand new agency, the owners made a ‘Networking-Chain’ with the mother company of KFC.
It was just an example of how networking can improve your business and help to build something effective.
I don’t say that you can’t do your own business.
Make yourself as a BRAND is more far-fetched than anything else.
That is why you should pick out your targeted customer, competitors, and people who can link your business globally, and that’s the main twist of the business game.
So, make your competitor, but never ever make an enemy when you are a novice entrepreneur.
You Haven’t Tested Your Idea
The majority of new entrepreneurs make this mistake every single step!
They haven’t tested their ideas, thinking that may be it can be risky for their business.
Without testing all of your plans, how can you judge that it can be a master plan or bullshit or trash?
If you look at the top 10 company in today’s marketplace, none of them is just got their honour in a single day.
They have tested their lots of plan for days and days, and then after several fails and success, they have got their significant success.
The designer doesn’t begin with some preconceived idea. Rather, the idea is the result of careful study and observation, and the design a product of that idea.
So, As an entrepreneur, you should implement your ideas no matter how it causes any fails.
I think every one of you knows the story of goal achiever spider after six steps of continuous fails! So make your business experimental and push realistic experiment.
Force to Do Now, Try to Achieve Now!
What instruction creates extra pressure in your job life?
Your boss came with work and says “Hey, submit this within 5 minutes.”
I can relate how much working rush running on your mind at that moment.
Building a business and expect to achieve something immediately shows nothing but show a proven example of “Do It Now” phases.
Isn’t it badly affect your business? One mistake of forcing your workforce to become perfect immediately, even your business ideas that you push to relate with your company that cannot be engaging just now is real trash.
Those who want to expand too quickly can fall like a person who runs like a horse when starting a race in the marathon.
Take your time to expand your business, wait for your success, wait for achievement, move step by step, do business planning from day one, and gently follow those steps.
If you want immediate achievement, nothing will give you the exact satisfaction.
Making Hiring Decisions Based on Cost and People You Like
Inexperienced, Unskilled or unreliable people are threatening; they are not your asset.
But most startup companies make the major mistake when they hire people for their business or company. They usually think about the cost!
I know thinking about something cost-effective is good, but hiring human resource is an essential part of starting a business.
And most of you want to hire people you know instead of grab the people with skilled & passionate people.
That’s the only reason you can be related to facing awful situations of switching people continuously.
Which affect your business, waste strategy, misuse people to suit the position and you are wasting to fulfil what you want after 1 year or 5 years later.
Instead of hiring someone based on cost and people you like rather than people you need for your business can be the reason of your unsuccessful story.
So, Hire people who can fit your business and who are skilled enough for that position.
Having too Small Margins
A common mistake entrepreneurs make is focused on fixing their budget. They thought people would buy a product when the price is low.
But in reality, people pay for a quality product as opposed to the cheap product. So never focused on making a budget with accepting small profit from your service or product, make unique, high demand and high-quality product or service that your customer love to buy whether the price is high or low.
Start Without Mentor
Remember your mother was the best instructor when you just started to learn Alphabet?
Why she was the best instructor?
Because she helps to make everything easy for you, You always got the best learning from her.
A mentor plays the same role as a person.
A mentor empowers a person to see a possible future, and believe that can be obtained.
A great mentor inspires every great achiever, and one good mentor can be more informative than a college education and more valuable than a decade’s income.
So, choose your mentor wisely and who can help you purely.
How can you choose your mentor?
- Follow the way of communication.
- Check their personality
- Does this person motivate you?
- Relevant to your business
Final Verdict
Most entrepreneur mistakes are irreversible setbacks, but you get another chance. You and around you, everyone make mistakes.
So learn from your mistakes that you avoid before reading my blog, and if you read it, it’s high time to set a proper plan and never make the same mistake again and again.
In business, your mistakes aren’t learning experience if you aren’t learning from them.
