3 Mistakes Young Businesses Make (And How to Avoid Them)
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There’s an undeniably infectious energy about young businesses that can be awesome to witness, and even more awesome to be a part of. With things moving fast, it’s easy to get swept up in the tide, especially if you have a belief that you’re on the right path.
But enthusiasm can be a little deceiving. It can mask some underlying issues that can have a significant long-term impact on profitability. While it’s important to have plenty of hope and optimism, it’s also important to remember that you can’t include belief on a balance sheet.
Wrapped up in hope, many young businesses make mistakes that at best hinder their progress, and at worst make their pathway towards success much more difficult. We’ve wrapped up some of those common issues below, as well as included some helpful guidance on how to avoid them.
Low Pricing
You can see why new businesses are tempted to underprice their products or services. They think that it’ll get them more customers.
And in many cases, they’re right. The problem is that while they win that battle, they often end up losing the war. Low pricing makes it more difficult to maintain healthy cash flow (a significant issue among young businesses) and also impacts long-term viability. Having a lot of customers is great, but if the bottom line isn’t looking good, then establishing success will be a challenge.
Managing Marketing Themselves
Young businesses often operate within a tight budget. In that reality, it becomes all too tempting for businesses to handle as much as they can in-house, rather than using some of their budget to hand a task over to someone else. While it’s usually possible to take the DIY approach to admin tasks and customer service support, complex tasks such as marketing often require expert help.
For this, outsourcing often makes the most financial sense. Working with a marketing agency such as Armory Digital Marketing gives businesses access to sophisticated marketing strategies without incurring the costs of hiring a full-time marketing specialist. Ultimately, online marketing is both essential for growth and increasingly challenging, making it a task that has to be managed correctly.
No Senior Experience
Most young businesses don’t have more senior members of staff in place purely because they can’t afford to hire for those roles yet. To a budget-conscious business, the idea of paying hundreds of thousands to access senior help isn’t even in the periphery of thought.
But it’s worthwhile bringing it into your line of thinking. You may not have the budget to hire a full-time senior executive, but that doesn’t mean you can’t tap into the wisdom and guidance of experience in other ways. Looking for a mentor (or even multiple) can have a hugely positive impact on a business’s prospects. Not only can it prevent a business from making rookie mistakes, but it can also give confidence — it’s much easier to proceed with a strategy when it’s been given the all-clear by someone who has been there, done that.