If you’re starting a new business—or if you’re looking to grow your existing business—then you’ve probably spent a fair amount of time studying marketing strategies.
That’s good. That’s important. But marketing strategies only won’t get you to where you want to be. This is particularly true if you’re making any of the following five mistakes. Take a look…
Mistake 1: Being Afraid to Negotiate As a business owner, you get plenty of opportunities to negotiate.
For example:
• You can negotiate a better affiliate deal with a vendor. If you’re the vendor, you can negotiate better terms with your super affiliates. • You can negotiate for better terms with your freelancers and employees.
• You can negotiate for lower rates or other perks from suppliers. • You negotiate good deals between you and your joint venture partners or even your business partners. Those are just a few of the most common negotiation opportunities that you may encounter on a fairly regular basis.
Now here’s the interesting part…
Most people never fully take advantage of these opportunities. In fact, most people never even attempt to negotiate. They feel silly. They feel afraid.
But what’s the worst that could happen? Someone says no. Big deal. Life moves on. And what’s the best-case scenario? Someone will agree to your terms, and you’ll end up getting a much better deal. Depending on what you’re negotiating, this could save or even generate thousands of extra dollars for you. It’s definitely worth at least asking if there’s room to negotiate.
Now here’s the next mistake…
Mistake 2: Letting Negativity Influence You No matter how solid your business plan is or even how well you’re doing, there’s always going to be someone who tries to tear you down. They’ll tell you your plans won’t work. They’ll say you should go get a “real job.” Even when you’re doing well, they’ll warn you that it won’t last. This is actually a lot more common than you think. Even some of the greatest entrepreneurs in the world have had to deal with this sort of negativity.
Take Walt Disney, whose own wife and brother laughed at his plans, and they told him no one would be interested in the types of films and animated characters he was developing. Of course we know how that story ended up. Today Disney is a household name, with an empire that includes amusement parks, movies, merchandise and more. If Disney had listened to his family, that empire wouldn’t exist. And that’s why it’s so important for you to believe in yourself and persist, even when everyone around seems to be unloading their negativity on you.
You need to let it slide off of you like water off a duck’s back. Which brings us to the next mistake…
Mistake 3: Failing To Plan When that negativity comes at you hard and fast, there’s one thing you can hold up as a shield to deflect it: a solid business plan. When you have a solid business plan, that means you’ve thought through ever part of your business in great deal. For example:
• You’ve figured out your target market, and learned as much as you can about them.
• You’ve designed a sales funnel, so you know what you’re going to sell to your target market.
• You’ve created a lead-generation and conversion strategy, so you know how you’re going to bring your target market to your website. • You’ve studied your competitors to the degree that you even know their strengths and weaknesses.
• You’ve looked for opportunities and threats within your marketplace.
• You’ve thought through potential problems and come up with solutions an workarounds. In other words, you’ve chosen a business model and a designed a plan for turning a profit. And if you do this, you’ll be ahead of the vast majority of people who start a business. After all, if you’re failing to plan, then you’re basically planning to fail. Next up…
Mistake 4: Wasting Time No one sets out to waste time intentionally. It’s not like you sit down at your computer at the beginning of the day and proclaim, “I think I’ll waste as much time as possible today.” And yet it happens. You blink, the day is gone, and you’re nowhere near getting through your to-do list. That’s a lot of wasted time—and wasted opportunity.
So what you need to do is focus on ways to make yourself more productive. Here are a few tips to help you out:
• Create and prioritize your to-do list. Before you go to bed at night, you should create a to-do list so that you know exactly what you need to do tomorrow. Be sure to prioritize this list so that your most crucial and important tasks are at the top of the list. In other words, focus on those tasks that deliver the biggest results to you.
• Try productivity apps. If you have troubles with distracting sites such as Facebook, then you may want to try a productivity app. These apps shut down all programs except for your essential programs, such as your word processor. This forces you to focus, because your typical distractions are inaccessible.
• Use timers. Sometimes being productive is as simple as setting a time for 20 minutes, and working as quickly as you can for the duration. If you keep setting a 20 minute timer throughout your allotted work time, you’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish.
And finally…
Mistake 5: Not Doing Market Research A lot of business owners and marketers get product ideas, think the idea is awesome, and then rush out to create the product. But when they put the product up for sale, no one buys it. Tumbleweeds blow over the order form. There is not even a trickle of sales, much less a flood.
So what happened?
The business owner probably didn’t do their market research. Don’t make this costly and time-consuming mistake. Instead, do some research to find out what your market is already buying. If they’re already purchasing a certain type of product in your niche, then there’s a very good chance they’ll buy your product. This is particularly true if you follow these two guidelines: #1, create something better than the existing solutions. In other words, don’t just create a “clone” or a “me too” product. Instead, improve upon the existing solutions.
Create a better mouse trap, as the saying goes. Put out a product with more features and better benefits than anything else out there. #2, set yourself apart from the competition. This means creating a USP (unique sales proposition) that tells your prospects why your products are different and better than the competing products.
This is your succinct reason why people should buy from you instead of your competitors.
Let’s wrap things up…
Conclusion So now that you know about five of the most common mistakes that can derail your business, you need to take a good look at yourself to find out if you’re making any of these mistakes. Chances are, you’re making at least one of these mistakes. In fact, most new business owners make several of these mistakes. For example, if you’ve ever had a day pass you by where you didn’t get much done, then you know the importance of productivity.
Or if you’ve ever launched a product that flopped, then you know why it’s so important to do your market research. The good news is that you now know to avoid these mistakes. And you can easily avoid many of the other top business mistakes too.
How?
By joining so many other savvy marketers to become a Power Marketer’s Club member. This is a site developed by two of the net’s top marketers.
These are two guys who’ve put multiple millions of dollars into their bank accounts over the years. They’ve been there, they’ve done that, and now they want to teach you the business strategies that will help you start or grow your business too.
Learn more now at powermarketersclub.com…
Special permission to republish this article was granted by Promote Labs Inc. & powermarketersclub.com