Yes, nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes, but as a micro business owner wouldn’t you want to avoid mistakes that keep your business from growing? Here are three important things most micro business owners do that don’t help them get ahead.
- They don’t delegate; they do everything themselves. Why? It could be a control issue, a serious case of perfectionism, and sometimes money plays a role too. But if you think about it, wouldn’t it make more sense to have an assistant or VA help you schedule meetings at say, $30/hour when your hourly rate is $75 or $200? Your time is much too valuable to spend on minute tasks when you could be working on generating more income. I know, it’s hard to give up control or to resist checking your copy one more time, but keeping the value of your time in mind might help you step back and let your VA take over the nitty gritty tasks.
- Spending too much time learning new stuff. Knowledge is power, but really, there is not enough time in the world to learn everything we want to know. If the new stuff is not going to enhance your service or product directly, it may not be worth your time spent on training. You already know what you need to know to help your customers, but if you can serve them better with the training, just go for it! Otherwise, leave the details on how to customize your website header to your webmaster or VA.
- Too much focus on creating a beautiful website instead of it’s functionality. Some websites are works of art, but unless you’re a photographer, visitors to your site will probably be more interested in finding information, quickly. They only “have” a few seconds to find what they’re looking for before they get frustrated and hit the Back button on their browser. And what’s worse, they will never come back again! When creating your website, think like your customer. What would you look for, where on the site would you expect certain information to be posted? Then hand off your rough draft to the web designer and let him/her worry about the details.
If you are making these mistakes, don’t worry, it’s not so painful to make changes and reverse the effects. Look at your business, determine what can be improved and start with small steps. You will not regret setting these priorities. Good luck!