If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
With so many moving parts in a business to look after, it's easy to let some of the important things fall through the cracks. Let's examine 5 business mistakes that will affect your business growth and bottom line profits and why you should get them fixed.
1. Inconsistent Marketing
Most business owners get into marketing with enthusiasm initially, but quickly lose momentum and consistency. They end up publishing ad-hoc social media posts, sending random emails to their subscribers and stop communicating with their audience on a regular basis. If you don't market your business consistently, people will forget who you are. They will forget how they ended up on your email list, or why they're even following you. These forgotten people need to be won over yet again and they need to hear and see your name on a consistent basis before they decide to buy from you or work with you.
2. Failure to Automate
Are you stuck in the old school way of doing things, like making phone calls to confirm appointments instead of using technology to send reminders to confirm? Even posting on social media can be automated using platforms such as Hootsuite or Meet Edgar. Yes, these automation tools cost money but compare the monthly or annual costs to the cost of an employee or a virtual assistant doing the same task. The old school ways are much more time consuming, thus costs you more money in the long run. It's worth finding the right tools that can help you automate while sticking within your budget.
3. Poor Branding or Messaging
What is your mission? What is your unique selling point (USP)? If you can't answer these two questions, you need to revisit your core messaging. Branding is more than your logo and business colours; it is your overall image and what you promise to your customers. If you need help, seek out a branding professional or a business coach who can ask the right questions and help you drill down to those core principles that drive your business.
4. Bad Money Management
What processes do you have in place for your bookkeeping and paying your monthly invoices? Do you have any idea what your income vs expense looks like? Do you have a habit of buying training classes that you don't have time to go through? There's no reason you should be surprised at tax time with how much (or how little) profit you made in the last year. Businesses that are positioned for growth have good money management solutions in place.
5. Reluctance to Invest in Your Business
Think of investing as a way to grow your business. Instead of taking the extra profits out to pay yourself every month, keep some of those profits in the business and use them to hire a virtual assistant, purchase software or training tools that will help your business, or invest in a business coach or mastermind group. Each of these investment options will help your business run more efficiently so you can have more time to serve your customers and prospects. Of course, you should pay yourself a salary every month. It's the profits (or a percentage of the month's profits) that should remain in the business to help it grow.
