Starting Your Business? Make Sure You Don't Make This Huge Mistake That Most People Make
brand direction & styling by us for Alice Beasley | photo by Amelia Soegijono Photography
The majority of businesses start by investing their resources, focus, and money on the wrong things. Entrepreneurs tend to want to begin with infrastructural and tangible things like websites, logos, Instagram feed, etc. These are things that make people feel like they are running a business, but they aren’t the cornerstones of running and growing a business.
Imagine that you’re building your dream house. You’re so excited about the look and feel of the house that you immediately jump into picking and choosing your tiles, decors, furniture, and all the things that are fun to shop for and that make beautiful interiors. And you do all of these without ironing out and finalizing the most crucial part, the blueprint of your house. What happens then? You end up with a house with pretty interiors without the right number of doors, stairs, bathrooms…, and nothing actually functions properly. Even with the help of contractors to patch things up later, the house can collapse anytime and it doesn’t last. You’d end up with a patchy house.
The same goes for starting your business.
Here is how most people start their businesses:
They hire a professional designer to find the perfect logo because they believe that a pretty logo makes them stand out.
Then they get a designer to create a fancy-looking website because they believe that a visually impressive website will attract customers.
They start spending money on ads based on guesswork on who their customers are.
After they’ve invested in all these upfront, then they wait for customers to come while they continue to spend money on ads without having clear metrics to track and assess the return on their ad spending. Meanwhile, they try to learn and pick up every tactic they see online from blogs, podcasts, social media, and youtube.
This is like running a patchy business, and it isn’t sustainable.
Click here to read, An Unspoken Myth: Why Most Pretty Brands Fail & How You Can Avoid It.
Now, what should you do instead? Start with your business blueprint.
Your business blueprint includes your Brand and Marketing Strategy. They give you a clear direction on all the decisions you make in your business in order to stand out in your market, from marketing, sales, operation, customer experience, to partnerships, so you can find out what actually works and aligns with your business instead of having to try every tactic and wasting efforts but get zero success.
Not sure where to start with your Brand Strategy? Click here to get the complete checklist to build your brand from scratch.
Already have your Brand Strategy all set and ready to move onto marketing? Read this post, The Never-Fail Formula to Build Your Winning Marketing Strategy, No More Second-Guessing.
If you want to get clear on how to stand out from the crowd, read How To Create A Strong & Unbeatable Brand Positioning In The Market.
Frustrated from not seeing results from your marketing? Watch this short mini-training I did, where I debunk the most common marketing myths and mistakes people make, and what you should do instead. Then check out this post to learn the 5-Part Framework to Build A Killer Marketing Funnel That Works Every Time.
Join me at our FREE training, so you know how to grow your profitable brand people love AND a loyal customer community who keep buying from you!