As an entrepreneur, you’ll make plenty of mistakes.
Now, I know you think of your business as your “baby”, and you want every aspect of your business to be perfect. But that’s just not possible.
I can guarantee you — there’s not a single entrepreneur who’s gotten things 100 percent right. And, yes, plenty of entrepreneurs say that they wouldn’t change a thing about their journey, but I call bullshit. They’re just looking back on the past with rose-tinted glasses.
The good news? There are steps you can take to reduce the mistakes you make.
Personally, I like to read books about business strategy, and talk to mentors. This helps me learn from other people’s mistakes and get new perspectives. And looking at the struggles I went through when I first started A1 Garage, I’ve realized that there are three key mistakes that new entrepreneurs make with their businesses.
If you’re just starting out as an entrepreneur, here are the three mistakes you should avoid:
1. Spend too much time on your weakness
I know, I know — in the beginning, you have no choice but to wear multiple hats.
You have to market and sell your product, hire new employees, take care of customer service, and do a gazillion other things. That’s fine when you’re starting out — but as you start to grow, you need to expand your team and hire A-players who can make up for your weaknesses.
I’ve always had a hard time getting organized — that’s my weakness. As soon as I hired a personal assistant, I finally had more time to focus on marketing and sales, and this had a huge impact on my bottom line.
2. Don’t put a time value on your hours
Again, when growing a new business, you have a thousand tasks that you need to get done. But while some of these tasks will grow your business, other tasks simply don’t add any value. I call the latter $10 per hour tasks — they include invoicing clients, sorting out payroll, filing your taxes, etc.
When you’re doing too many $10 per hour tasks, you’re not valuing your hours enough. To avoid this, sit down and identify all your $10 per h tasks, and delegate or outsource them so that you can focus on your more valuable tasks.
3. You want to do 10 different things at a time
In the beginning, I wanted to do it all. I wanted to do SEO, social media marketing, customer service, pay-per-click (PPC) and that’s just scratching the surface of it. As an entrepreneur, you can probably relate!
Obviously, this isn’t a good move. Personally, I struggled with having multiple things on my plate, and started to burn out. It was only when I changed my approach, and focused on one thing at a time did I start to see results.
If you’re splitting your focus between multiple things, it’ll be hard for you to see any meaningful results. Pick one most important thing that you want to focus on right now, and only work on something else once you’ve gotten this done.
Look, making mistakes is inevitable — and it’s important to know how to pick yourself up and move on when you do screw up. That said, if you can learn from other entrepreneurs and avoid making the same mistakes they did, that’s even better!
Written By Tommy Mello,
Founder, A1 Garage Doors
Follow him on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, @realtommymello
Published on Inc.com, September 21, 2018
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