As a businessperson, your ultimate goal is to grow your brand, dominate the market and derive profit from your business. This, however, never comes easy. A strategic approach must be taken to ensure the maximum growth and productivity of any business or brand.
However, most often, while trying to take the right approach and make the best decision as a businessperson, most brand owners end up doing the exact opposite of what they actually intended -- they end up making critical mistakes that cause their brand to wash off from the business sphere in no time.
To save you from these crucial errors that can gradually eliminate your brand, here’s a list of five common mistakes that tend to rear an ugly head, even for world-renowned business titans. Most of the businesspeople mentioned below owe their late success to these mistakes.
1. Ignoring customer complaints/feedback.
"Listen and learn from your customers," said Sadiq Samji CEO of Allure HBF, a leader in the hair loss solution industry for both men and women. "Don't try and reinvent the wheel and market a product or service without first considering your customer base. Before you can determine profit, you must ensure that your customers are happy and content with your product or service."
As surprising as it may sound, consumer remarks can determine the growth or fall of your business. As a matter of fact, an analytic business study stated that for every one complaint from a consumer, 26 others have remained silent. That means for every negative feedback you ignore as a businessperson, it’s safe to say that you’ve ignored 27 complaints.
If all 27 customers decide to leave negative reviews about your product, you can only imagine how many more potential customers you’ve deterred as a result of your inaction. Creating an atmosphere where consumers can freely express their experience from the use of your product(s) is paramount. You should never ignore their demands and inconveniences.
2. Being profit-oriented.
The aim of every business is certainly to drive profit. However, most businesspeople make this objective their only priority and disregard the proper ways to go about it. As a result, they soil their brands with subpar products albeit fancily packaged.
While this process may require little expense, and bring in immediate profit, such brands never last in the long run. No one returns to spend their hard-earned money on a low-quality product, especially when they expected something better. Also, once your customers learn of the inauthenticity of your products, they’ll give negative remarks and drive away even more customers.
Other than aiming to make rapid sales, strive to make quality products that’ll entice your consumers in such a way that they’ll unconditionally keep coming for more.
3. Aiming for the perfect start.
Most aspiring businesspeople are stagnant because they waited for the perfect opportunity to kick-start their business. After studying the lives of top business moguls like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and others, it's clear that none of them had all the resources at arm’s reach when they started. As a matter of fact, most of them kick-started their journey with petty jobs, like selling papers, before fully embracing the business world.
The fact is, there’s never a perfect time to venture into any business. And if there really is, it’s right now. Likewise, there’s never a perfect start either.
The best way to start a business is by familiarizing yourself with the basics. You can do through the media -- intelligent books, etc. -- that center on the lives of successful business people and how they made it to the top.
4. Disregard for knowledge.
Some may think that running a business is pretty straightforward. As a result, they end up believing they already have all the knowledge needed to run a successful business. They are, however, being ignorant to the fact that the business sphere is ever-changing, and newer trends evolve every day. New startups rise on a daily basis, each seeking attention and trying to dominate their respective market.
In order to grow a dominant and successful brand in this state, it would be not only wise, but also pertinent, to learn the latest happenings in your market and come up with strategic approaches to have your business stand out.
Leave your comfort zone, and learn new things. Read insightful books from successful business individuals who already walked the path. Exert flexibility in running your business, and always strive to absorb the newest trends from the ever-changing business world.
5. Trying to grow a brand single-handedly.
As a startup founder, it’s important to avoid unnecessary expenses -- this also involves working with as few employees as possible. However, for a growing brand, trying to carry the weight of your business single-handedly, and acting as the sole overseer of every part of your business for the sake of a higher net profit, is utterly absurd.
A successful business consists of several sectors -- from the production sector to the marketing sector, all crucial to the success of a business. As a result, trying to run all these sectors single-handedly -- or inadequately in terms of workforce -- to cut expenses, can, in turn, retard your productivity and make running the business more tasking than should be.
You can start out with a few qualified employees who can efficiently cover the critical sectors. However, as your business progresses, you should never hesitate to add more employees to create an adequate workforce.
Conclusion.
The business world can be likened to a battlefield, with every brand owner seeking dominance. Most startups crumble because they disregard common knowledge. They fail to realize how much difference tiny actions or inactions can make to a business.
Learn from the above mistakes, inculcate their solutions, and you’ll soon find your brand becoming a reference point for newer startups.
Lanre Onibalusi
Lanre Onibalusi is a Digital Marketing Expert / Consultant with almost a decade worth of experience. He majored in Economics at the University of Ibadan and is currently a self-employed entrepreneur. A huge part of his expertise invol...
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