7 Beginner Mistakes That Will Cost Your Startup Big Time

Startups need to be extra careful, even with the most minute things, because in this phase of the business, the process and the systems in place aren’t as optimized as they should be. Although there are a number of things that can go wrong in a startup business, we’ll talk about the 7 most common mistakes that new business owners make that are detrimental to a startup’s success. 


1) Accepting Too Much Responsibility.
If you have tons of responsibilities and are doing too much manual work, then chances are that you probably aren’t running your business. You’re just doing manual work. You need to remember that more than anything else, your key role as a business owner is to delegate and capitalize on the strengths of your workers. Doing everything by yourself won’t just burn you out fast, it’ll also lower your business’s overall productivity. 


2) Not Having An Online Presence.
If you think that having a brick and mortar store and advertising your business via traditional means is enough (TV, radios, etc.), then you’re in for a huge surprise. Considering how technology and the Internet age is on the rise, having an online presence can be the sole difference between success and failure. There are several website builder services on the web like Wix or  IM Creator that allow you to make a professional looking website for free. It’s because of this that business owners and regular people are able to have their own online real estate. If your company doesn’t have an online presence, then you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities. 


3) Not Collecting Feedback From Customers.
A good way to determine whether you’re making the right business decisions is to ask for your customers’ feedback. It’s a good reflection of how your business is viewed by your customers and can be used as an invaluable tool when it comes to upgrading/improving your products. 


4) Being Unresponsive To Your Employee’s Needs.
If you have your employees’ backs, there’s no reason why they won’t have yours. Making sure that your employees’ needs are met is critical if you want to make sure that they give you 100% of their focus. The more they are bothered by a lot of things, the more mistakes they’re likely to make, which can end up costing your company. 


5) Give Up Vacation.
Being burned out is an all too familiar problem for CEOs and business owners. And because they are burned out, they tend to make the wrong decisions and are easily frustrated and angered. When the people at the management level are burned out, they usually become a source of negative energy in the office, making the environment very hostile. It’s important to take a break, relax, and come back to work refreshed and energized than to wear yourself out but working nonstop.


6) Making Decisions Without Enough Data.
Data is what helps you make well informed decisions, whether in your business or your personal life. The more data you have, the higher your chances are of succeeding and attaining the goal that you set out when you made that business decision. Making an important decision without the appropriate use of data is pretty much like gambling. It can be likened to you doing a toss coin to determine whether it’s a yes or no for your business. This clearly isn’t the way to go. Because if it’s that easy, then everyone can venture into business since everyone can toss a coin. 


7) Selling Your Product’s Features and Not The Benefits.
What makes your customers want your product isn’t the features of the product, it’s the benefit that they’ll get from having or using your product. It’s very important to emphasize this matter to your employees, as well as your sales team, if you want to increase your sales. An effective piece of advice that you can follow when selling is to paint a mental picture to your customer where they’re already experiencing the benefit of having your product.
__________________________________________________________________________________________

This is an edited version of an post originally posted at yourstory.com, by Murray Newlands,  YourStory's US Correspondent and Deputy Editor at Search Engine Journal.  Consultant. You are free to re-edit and repost this in your own blog or other use under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License terms, by giving credit with a link to www.startupcommons.org and the original post.