You know there couldn’t have only been five mistakes that you’d want to avoid when you start a business, right? Here are five more that I’d like to bring to your attention:
Mistake #6: You start a business simply because you like doing something (or you’re good at it).
This mistake is actual a mistake in decision-making prior to launching a business.
Let’s say that an employee of an interactive agency thinks that she can just start her own business just because she has a particular skill, such as marketing, graphic design, etc.
What this person isn’t think about, however, is that running a business in the area of her skill set is completely different than just having a job where she can focus on doing the one thing that she’s good at. Running a business entails accounting, sales, marketing, operations — in addition to doing the work for her clients.
If you’re currently employed at a company and thinking of starting your own business that would offer the same service that you’re performing now at your job, make sure to think about whether or not you’d be interested in building a business — not just the area of business where your skills lie.
Mistake #7: You get distracted by all of the opportunities out there and lose focus.
When your business is up and running, you’ll find yourself with opportunities to branch out and provide additional service or product offerings and create joint ventures and partnerships. These opportunities are fantastic, and it’s always a good idea to take a look at the ones that cross your plate; however, I caution you to discipline yourself to stay focused on your core business — or your business may end up suffering the consequences of being spread too then.
I’ll provide you with an example here. My business, Highly Relevant, had an opportunity to partner with another agency to create an educational platform for digital marketing. We thought it was a great opportunity and pursued it. What we didn’t realize, however, was how much time and energy we would have to spend on developing this educational project. It was literally another business in itself!
Spending time on this side project definitely took away some of the focus and energy that I could have been spending on our core business.
The lesson here is that it’s okay to say “no” to opportunities; in fact, it’s crucial for you to say “no” to opportunities until you have the core piece of your business completely established and thriving. (Mark Cuban agrees :) .)
You might also be interested in:
Top Websites for Starting a Business
Mistakes To Avoid When Starting a Business (part 1)
Mistake #8: You don’t define roles and responsibilities with your business partner(s).
Whether you have one business partner or four of them, it’s vital that you sit down with them and define everyone’s responsibilities and what they’re accountable for. Clarity is the key here. If your roles and responsibilities aren’t clear, it could lead to lots of confusion on who exactly is doing what.
It’s important to note that the roles and responsibilities can certainly change over time; however, in the beginning, it’s important to make sure that everyone’s clear on what part of the business he or she is in charge of.
I would even suggest writing out the primary roles and responsibilities and putting them on the wall of your office so that they’re completely visible to everyone.
Mistake #9: You don’t create any systems and processes.
A business is a system of systems… so if you don’t have any systems in place, then your business won’t be scalable, and you’ll have tremendous difficulty in growing it. You especially need to document the systems and processes for tasks that need to be done repeatedly, so that you can outsource them and focus on more high-impact actions, such as strategy, planning, and refining your systems.
How do you know if you should build a system or process for something that you’re doing? Here’s the rule: if you do a certain task or go through a specific process more than once, then you should eventually build a system for it.
How do you build a system? Simply document the steps that you need to take in order to complete a certain task. Once you have this system documented, you can outsource the task or hire someone to do the task for you. Now you’re freed up to build other systems or focus on other more high-impact tasks.
Mistake 10: You make decisions about what’s best for you and your ego — not what’s best about your business.
If you’re going to build a great business, you have to make decisions that are in the best interests of your business — rather than your ego — especially if you’re working with other people.
Building a successful business takes sacrifice, and sometimes that means sacrificing your ego for the good of the business. For example, perhaps you really think you should handle the finances for the company, but you simply do not have the accounting background that another person on your team does. It would definitely be better for the company if the other person was to take care of the company finances.
Place the best interests of the business above your best interests.
Article written and contributed by Justin Hong. Justin is a Managing Partner of Highly Relevant. For more information, check out his website JustinHong.com
From: http://ping.fm/JXSMM
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