subject: Five Mistakes To Avoid When You Are Trying To Grow Your Business [print this page] Things have dramatically changed; product cycles have become shorter and shorter and new media make it possible to market your business any place, any time to any people. it's time to revise what we deem as a 'normal' time frame for success.
Until recently many corporations had their primary focus on cutting expenses.
Investments for new ideas have been postponed, companies were downsized and so were the marketing and R&D budgets. In the meantime revenues and profits were decreasing faster and faster.
The challenge is to break with this negative spiral. The time is now for stepping up in order to find new ways to get your business monetized again!
There for investments must be made in innovating and renewal of business propositions, services and solutions. If you want to grow your business to the next level, without falling flat on your face, there are some mistakes you should avoid at all costs.
Not Monitoring Your Cash Flow: It is easy to take on too much work all at once and forget all about keeping an eye on your cash flow. After all, everyone wants to sell more. But don't forget that you usually have to outlay more money in order to be able to make more sales. And if there is a huge gap before you get that money back, your business could collapse.
Letting Your Growth Run Out of Control: Cash flow problems aren't the only difficulties that out of control growth can cause you. Take on too much work too fast and you could end up letting customers down and wind up with bad word of mouth. Also if you try to do too much all at once, you may end up burning out to the point that it affects your health.
Believing That If You Build It They Will Come: This is a fatal mistake that many business owners make. If people don't know you exist, they won't even know where to come. You should spend every spare minute marketing your business, to get plenty of customers through the door.
Keeping Too Many Items in Stock: Stockpiling the products you sell, or the materials you make to use them, is sure to cause you problems. Monitor your sales and don't keep anything in stock that you can't sell quickly.
Trying to Do It All Yourself: When you start a new business, you may want to do it all yourself to avoid running out of money. And that is not a bad idea. But once you're making more sales and profits, it is wise to get help, so you don't become overwhelmed. If you don't want to employ people, you don't have too. There are several online services where you can outsource some of your more mundane work. And you can do this as a one of, or on a regular basis.
Make sure you avoid these mistakes if you want to grow your business. You don't want to become one of the many businesses that fail, because you didn't control your growth.
