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There is a lot of pressure on small businesses to grow. They want to expand their reach, increase sales, and grow their brands.
Unfortunately, this leads to many falling into small business pitfalls that they can easily avoid. Small businesses need to understand their challenges and embrace them instead of avoiding them and risk falling into the 20% of small businesses that fail within their first year.
If you're a small business owner, you know that many things can hold you back from growing your business. One of the biggest is being unprepared for growth. If unprepared, you may face challenges you never expected. It's essential to welcome the opportunities when scaling your brand. Here are five small business pitfalls to avoid:
1. No Infrastructure
One of the biggest challenges for small businesses is having an infrastructure that can handle the growth. If you don't have a solid foundation from the start, then you're doomed to fail. You need to have a growth plan and the systems and processes to make it happen.
Avoiding this pitfall is easier than you think. All you need is a plan covering how to structure your business to building your business strategy. You need to account for all the small details so that you can continue building a solid infrastructure. Better yet – keep a handy checklist of everything needed for business growth.
2. Not Setting SMART Goals
Setting goals is a critical part of creating a successful business. If you don't have clear goals, it's hard to know how you will succeed. SMART goals are the best way to set your goals. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound.
Be specific about your goals and have clear expectations to know exactly what you want. You should also define the necessary metrics you must track to measure your progress. More specifically, breaking your goals down into actionable items on a daily and weekly basis, you can ensure that you stay on the right track. Additionally, people who write down or picture their goals are 1.2 to 1.4 times more likely to accomplish them versus people who don't follow this practice.
3. Avoiding Technology
Another common pitfall that too many brands fall into is avoiding technology as much as they possibly can. While their reasons may be valid, such as a lack of budget, avoiding technology altogether is a big mistake.
Technology is a critical part of your business. It's how you automate processes and make your business more efficient. It is also how you connect with your audience and grow your brand. Welcome technology and understand how it can help your business grow. Avoid this by starting small. Implementing an email marketing strategy or investing in content marketing is a cost-effective way to help increase your brand awareness.
4. Ignoring the Budget
You need to have a budget for your business. This is not something that you want to skip out on. You need to have a budget to spend money on what will help grow your business. To be more specific, understand how crucial cash flow is to the health of your business. Having a positive cash flow, or having more money than overhead, indicates that a business's liquid assets are increasing. It's a sign of growth. Liquid capital is needed to pay the bills, reinvest in the business, and save enough money to cover expenses during slow times.
Avoid this by establishing your budget early on. You should also track your spending and make sure you are spending money on the things that will help you grow. Be aware of where your money is going so you can plan on how best to scale your business moving forward.
5. Trying to Scale Too Quickly
While there is no perfect time to scale your business, you do need to be aware of the risks of scaling too quickly. Scaling too quickly is one of the biggest small business pitfalls as processes and tools may not be in place to handle the growth. Therefore, additional challenges are faced which can pull you away from sustainability causing the overall profitability of your business to suffer.
The best way to avoid this pitfall is to set a timeline for your growth (i.e. setting your SMART goals). Without proper goals and a plan for success, you could find yourself sinking faster than you ever imagined.
Moral of the Story: Set Goals and Establish Plans
It may seem too simple, but the best way to avoid the most common small business pitfalls is to set clear goals, stick to them, and have an action plan for every step of your journey. Making yourself aware of these pitfalls is only the first step. Now it's time to take action.
Once you have your plan in place, take your business to the next level and hit the ground running! Just remember: don't try to push too hard, too fast.
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