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There are many ways for small business owners to make mistakes, especially when you’re first starting out.
Simple things like struggling with cash flow to losing your business purpose are just some of easy initial mistakes.
Mistakes happen. But that doesn’t mean you can’t succeed. Take Michael Jordan for example, the greatest ever American basketball player, here’s what he said about mistakes:
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
The key to success is to learn from your mistakes and improve your business. We asked six business owners about their biggest mistakes and how they fixed them.
We hope you can take some key learnings from these business owners, who share their mistakes and what not to do as a small business in 2018.
Mistake #1: Not establishing healthy boundaries
When I first started out in business, I was doing a lot of Facebook marketing, and as it was quite new back then for brands (8 yrs ago), I felt compelled to be online constantly. I was also taking phone calls at 8 pm on a Friday night trying to sort out client issues. I had no boundaries in place, and this took its toll.
I was unwell at the time, and over time I started not to enjoy what I was doing. It was becoming a drag.
And I realised that I needed some healthy boundaries, that people really don’t expect you to be online all the time. I learnt that even if they are online all the time, it’s ok for me not to be and that I would be at my best if I took time out to do other things.
I immediately stopped working weekends, and worked towards some boundaries and balance.
Nic Henry Jones – Market Me Marketing
Mistake #2 – Focusing on marketing before building cash flow
The biggest issue I had was focusing on spending money on marketing instead of getting clients first. Too many people teach it in the wrong order. We must build cash flow first and THEN invest properly in the right marketing.
To explain – when I first started out:
I had a mentor who told me to buy a website, get a 1300 number, so I looked bigger, get business cards, flyers, banners, brochures, to spend all the time setting up Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter etc.
I spent so much time and money on all of this (about $10000) only to realise I didn’t like the business name, I wanted to change the colours, I wasn’t sure of my offering, I wasn’t attracting any clients and was definitely not making any money.
What helped me to identify it was actually my husband who said to me “Surely you have met enough people now to make millions!!” Those words hurt but he was absolutely right. I went through the stack of cards on my desk, called up a business owner and offered him a service (that added value to his clientele), he loved it, and I was off and running. I see this so often now with business owners starting out or trying to grow.
I know it’s bizarre coming from a marketer, but I also realised that I was supposed to go through it so I could help others and it became my point of difference. I tell my clients, start with the numbers, the KPIs, the expectations. Then you know what you want your marketing to do for you before you go wasting a fortune on it!!!
It was the best lesson I ever learnt and am absolutely happy to share with others to save them the cash and the pain.
Happy to chat about ALL the mistakes I have made, there have been plenty that’s for sure.
Michelle O’Hara – Oh Marketing
Mistake #3: Not executing on your goals
Execution!; Not just having a business plan, target and goals but actively executing them.
It is easy to confuse action with traction; being busy with activities and not actually moving towards the end result.
Richard Bowles – Richard Bowles Website
Mistake #4: Not using your previous experience
I spend every day showing people there is a very different way to live …. I dedicate every day to empowering simple connection throughout the world.
My biggest mistake when starting my business was completely negating all the experience I had had previously in my corporate roles because I had moved to a new industry. I suddenly felt like all of my wisdom and experience that had been gained over almost two decades wasn’t worthwhile and I relied on others to tell me what I needed to do for my business to be successful.
All of a sudden I found myself structuring my business in a way that wasn’t aligned with who I was, and focusing on things that I really didn’t like doing. It wasn’t until I stepped away from what everyone else was telling me was the ‘right’ way to do things and created a structure and work/life combination that allowed me to thrive that allowed my business, and myself within it to flourish.
When it comes to creating a simpler life, there’s many things that can impact us. Because I live my life immersed in my passion, I am able to offer others a brilliantly simple approach to overcoming feeling overwhelmed and living a life with less stress and more resilience (two of the biggest things impacting people’s lives at the moment).
Bornwen Sciortino – She IQ Life
Mistake #5: Not minimizing effects of unavoidable mistakes
We ordered 100 hammock stands that turned out to be defective (call it several thousand dollars worth). The supplier said they would send us replacement parts. After a year of waiting and not receiving anything, all the while paying rent every week, we finally decided to pay to dump the faulty stock to stop paying the rent.
End result: around $5000 loss and managing customer complaints, from a single supplier issue.
It was an expensive exercise, but it feels like part of the learning curve, as we refine our product line and preferred suppliers. It’s hard to avoid this sort of mistake though, as it’s difficult to predict everything that can go wrong. Eg. We had another 100 stands that had bad packaging, so they often got damaged during delivery.
Now we know that heavy items definitely need special, strong packaging and padding, though I feel that more of these sort of mistakes in the future are unavoidable.
As long as 90% of our products are proving successful and without issue, then we can trade through any problems and phase out the products with issues.
Another issue with one of our swings (https://www.heavenlyhammocks.com.au/swings/) – the supplier decided to pack 2 swings per carton instead of 1, so it made it impossible for us to sell as the customers usually buy just 1. This required lots of time and money spent on repacking. Again, we can’t predict when they’ll make a random mistake like this, so we can only learn which suppliers are reliable and which aren’t.
Daniel Brady – Heavenly Hammocks
Mistake #6: Failure to plan
Certainly, our biggest mistake came when we were growing the fastest. Failure to plan well on things like finance (e.g. cash flow) and capacity (people, computers, space, people again, workstations etc.) caused us to run into some big issues that threatened the business. Also as the owner having to dig myself out of a hole, I had to work day and night with little sleep to fix it severely affecting my health. I am happy to share all the details on this if you’re interested.
Dean Salakas – The Party People
We hope these insights into the wonderful world of hindsight help you and your business from possibly making the same mistakes.
Is there a business blunder that you wish you prevented? We’d love to hear from you, share your story here
“The opinions expressed by BizWitty Contributors are their own, not those of BizCover and should not be relied upon in place of appropriate professional advice. Please read our full disclaimer."
