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Mistakes That Can Flat Line Your Small Business Sales
Janis Pettit
SmarTrack
People are talking about a recession and that means fear is in the air. Well, if you want your small or solo business or practice to flourish anyway, make sure you're not making any of these common mistakes.
Mistake #1 Focusing on only one or two profit strategies
If you only have sales and profit coming into your business from one source-say advertising for example-you're leaving thousands of dollars on the table.
Mistake #2- Not understanding how and why people buy
You've got to understand why someone would choose you over your competitors so you can get their repeat business. And you need to know how they buy and when they buy. This is about research. Once you know what they want or need you can give it to them, not the opposite.
Mistake #3- Not thinking outside the box
Do you want to be like everyone else or do you want to be extraordinary? If you do, you better show people how you're unique and fresh. Otherwise you won't stand out in the over crowded, too-much-information marketplace.
Mistake #4 - Not developing and using a proven system for your marketing
You can throw money and time away on "shot in the dark marketing", where you just try this and try that with no idea if it will work, or you can implement a proven system that will work time after time and give you a return on investment for every marketing dollar you spend. You need to spend your marketing dollars narrowly focusing on reaching your target market in as many ways as possible, and you need to measure the results and regularly eliminate what doesn't work.
Mistake #5 - Not following a long-term business building strategy
- What do you want your business to look like 2 years from now? Go ahead and picture it.
- How many paying clients would you like to have?
- How many hours would you be working?
- How much money would you like to be making?
- How much help (outsourced or employees) would you have?
- How much free time would you like to have?
If you're making any of these mistakes, don't feel bad. There are many others in the same boat. But now you have the knowledge to avoid them in the future and really move your business in the right direction.
Article submitted Monday, July 14, 2008
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