10 Mistakes That Start-Up Entrepreneurs Make

[billbenson]

The link below is from an article. In view of some recent threads I thought the quote below was interesting:


1. Going it alone. It's difficult to build a scalable business if you're the only person involved. True, a solo public relations, web design or consulting firm may require little capital to start, and the price of hiring even one administrative assistant, sales representative or entry-level employee can eat up a big chunk of your profits. The solution: Make sure there's enough margin in your pricing to enable you to bring in other people. Clients generally don't mind outsourcing as long as they can still get face time with you, the skilled professional who's managing the project.

mistakes-of-startup-entrepreneurs: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/110551/mistakes-of-startup-entrepreneurs?mod=career-leadership)

[Designs&Details]

This one was also interesting:


3. Spending too much time on product development, not enough on sales. While it's hard to build a great company without a great product, entrepreneurs who spend too much time tinkering may lose customers to a competitor with a stronger sales organization. "I call [this misstep] the 'Field of Dreams' of entrepreneurship. If you build it, they will buy it," says Sanjyot Dunung, CEO of Atma Global, Inc., a New York software publisher, who has made this mistake in her own business. "If you don't keep one eye firmly focused on sales, you'll likely run out of money and energy before you can successfully get your product to market."[/url]

[SEOHelp]

Good Article!

I would add that, you have to start from day one with your marketing efforts. That way, it will be ingrained in every decision that you make as you go forward. If you want people to find your business online and off - you really have to prefect your online and offline marketing efforts as soon as possible.
Trust me - I spent years building my business first then working on trying to market it online - and got no where. But, when I started my last business and focused on marketing from the very beginning, I finally found the success I was working so hard for.

[Local Trifecta]

Although I suppose this could fall under "Not having a business plan" there is an unbelievable amount of businesses who dont know who their clients are, where they are located, or how to target them. Although my expertise is mostly online I talk to people daily who simply struggle finding their market. One of my pet peeves is asking a business owner who their target market is and they respond "the world" or "anyone with internet access" ... sheesh.

[Blessed]

Although I suppose this could fall under "Not having a business plan" there is an unbelievable amount of businesses who dont know who their clients are, where they are located, or how to target them. Although my expertise is mostly online I talk to people daily who simply struggle finding their market. One of my pet peeves is asking a business owner who their target market is and they respond "the world" or "anyone with internet access" ... sheesh.

Those responses aggravate me too :)

What I've found though is that if I keep pushing my client to tell me who their market is by asking leading questions - we eventually figure it out - usually those are people who are willing to work for anyone, whose product or service is a good fit for almost anyone but whose actual market is women with small children or newly marrieds with full time jobs and money to spend and etc... they are so busy trying not to eliminate any potential customers that they fail to see that while anyone can be their customer, 3/4 of the population isn't likely to be their customer

[ParaTed2k]

Great advice, but I would also recommend anyone running the business themselves have some kind of accountability partner. That is someone who you meet with on a regular basis to talk about your goals, what you are doing to reach them, and how well you are doing towards reaching them. I know that many of us started our own business so we wouldn't have ot answer to anyone, and not having a boss is GREAT! However, it's easy to shrug off, or get in a little denial if we're the only ones seeing the numbers. Also, knowing you'll have to tell someone what you're doing often helps us make better decisions.

How often does something sound good in our heads, but as soon as we even say them outloud, we see the errors?

[Spider]

Great advice, but I would also recommend anyone running the business themselves have some kind of accountability partner. That is someone who you meet with on a regular basis to talk about your goals, what you are doing to reach them, and how well you are doing towards reaching them. I know that many of us started our own business so we wouldn't have ot answer to anyone, and not having a boss is GREAT! However, it's easy to shrug off, or get in a little denial if we're the only ones seeing the numbers. Also, knowing you'll have to tell someone what you're doing often helps us make better decisions.

How often does something sound good in our heads, but as soon as we even say them outloud, we see the errors?Great argument for hiring a business coach!!!!

[ParaTed2k]

Great argument for hiring a business coach!!!!

That would be a great choice for accountability partner!