10 Most Common Big Mistakes You Must Avoid As An Online Business Owner (+ Sure-Fire Fixes!)
Studies show that 90% of online businesses fail within the first four months of operation. (Silver, 2010) This sounds insanely high, doesn’t it?
As fellow women who run our own online business and work with tons of inspiring women business owners and entrepreneurs in different cities around the world, we've seen some major roadblocks that hold back newbies from making the progress they need to become part of the 10% club with a success story.
Whether you're selling products or services, if the early stages of your online business, or planning to launch soon, don't let these common pitfalls trip you up and keep you from building your dream business. Let's make sure you avoid those traps, alright?
10 biggest mistakes online business owners make and what to do instead:
Mistake 1. Waiting for the perfect time to take action
If you think you can’t launch your business, product, or service yet because you haven’t made your website “good enough”, haven’t had a big email list, or don’t have enough followers, stop. Because “the perfect time” doesn’t exist, and you’ll never truly “perfect” anything. Don’t let excuses hold you back and trap you from taking action. You lose the chance to learn from doing the actual work.
Running a business is an ongoing process. So, set your goals and get in action. You can always get feedback from customers, audience, and beta users to keep making improvements that help you grow in the right direction.
Mistake 2. Prioritizing pretty but less important things
Too many online business owners spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to perfect their DIY logo, business cards, graphics, and any other visual component of their businesses. While we also love using the DIY tool, Canva, which is loved and praised among business owners, tools like this can become major distractions.
New entrepreneurs often think that if they make their online business “pretty,” sales will come, which we know is not true. Otherwise, it would be much easier to grow a sustainable business, and more than 10% of online businesses would make it after four months, wouldn’t it?
Instead of spending a huge chunk of time on making your brand pretty, focus on actually running your business instead. Prioritize the things that are truly important for you to build a sustainable business.
Not sure where to start? Start with one of the most important things – Go to this post and figure out who your target customers are.
brand direction & styling by us for Urban Loft Beauty | photo by Aimi Photo
Mistake 3. Thinking social media is your marketing strategy
To start an online business, most entrepreneurs begin with setting up a website and getting on different social media platforms. If they have more budget, they buy ads and then wait, hoping customers will come.
The problem with this approach is you don’t know how all the different online tactics you’re using actually work together to drive traffic and turn leads into customers. Rather than getting customers and growing your business, you end up getting into the social media rabbit hole and focusing on the less important things, like follower counts, likes, and producing content without knowing if it brings customers. You also run the risk of getting sidetracked by different social media hacks or new features and trends.
To fix this, build a master marketing action plan that maps out your marketing funnels and how all your different marketing pieces work together to attract customers. If you want to learn more, click here to join this free class on – how to attract 100 people who want to buy from you without doing more on social media.
Want to stop getting sidetracked? Here are the 10 best productivity hacks for easily distracted entrepreneurs who want to get focused.
Mistake 4. Becoming a full-time content creator instead running your online business
There is no denying that content marketing has become extremely important to all businesses, especially for building connections and loyalty with customers. However, because of the increasing emphasis placed on content marketing, many online business owners are spending way too much time creating content. Then they find themselves wearing both the business owner and content creator hats equally, which leads to more stress, more distractions, their time and energy split up, and little results.
How do you leverage content marketing efficiently and effectively? You have to fully own your business owner role and create systems that help you create more content with less time, so you can focus on other important areas of your business that help you gain the momentum you need to keep growing. Want to save time? Check out this post and learn how to master the art of repurposing your content.
Mistake 5. Making content that is boring people instead of attracting them
To build trust and attract customers online, most business owners know that creating content is important. (Not sure if content marketing is right for your business? Click here to find out.) But they soon run out of content topics to share or people stop engaging with their content. Why? Because they focus mainly on sharing about their business, products, or services instead of what their target customer and audience really want to know.
Your target customers aren’t buying your products or services. They are buying the benefits and results that come with using what you sell. So, don’t just share content all about you, but expand to sharing topics that your target customers are interested in and that are related to what you do.
For example, if you help clinics with brand and website designs, instead of all the technical stuff about websites, your target customers might be interested in creative ways to drive traffic to their websites or simple ways to make all their marketing graphics and collaterals cohesive and attention-grabbing.
And if you sell cute office and desk decor, your target customers might be interested in unique artistic finds, creative brands, or ways to add more colors and joys to their life and wardrobe.
When creating content, instead of just showcasing your products and work, focus on who your target customers are, and share topics relating to their headaches, their wants, and deeper desires.
brand direction & styling by us for Comeplum Photography | photo by Claire Xu
Mistake 6. Thinks growing a business is a one-size-fits-all strategy
Many entrepreneurs think that what worked for other businesses will also work for them, too. So, they copy the exact strategy from another business, hoping to get the same success and results. But because every business owner’s situation, context, resources, target customers, strengths, and weaknesses are all different, there isn’t a strategy that can be applied the same way and gets you the same exact results. Business strategies aren’t one-size-fits-all.
Instead of copying what someone else is doing, figure out what works best for your business and customers, and build a strategy while focusing on the things that bring you value and repeating your success.
Mistake 7. Starting everything from scratch
Because of the long to-do lists from starting and running a business, new business owners often get lost in the day-to-day tasks. This also means that they often miss the important big-picture tasks, such as building repeatable systems and processes in place to scale.
For everything in your business, from sales, marketing, and operations, to administration, there should be processes in place to help you minimize risks and errors while repeating your success and what worked in the past. This means turning everything you do in your business into templates and workflows that are repeatable and scalable, so you can be freed from overwork and get more time back to take your business to the next level.
Here are 3 silly-simple techniques you can start today to build effective processes that you will actually use.
Mistake 8. Chasing after any sale
Starting a business can be both exciting and scary, and most new business owners are eager to make sales and not let any opportunity slip. This often results in the common scarcity mindset and the tendency to get any sale from anyone. And when you try to cast a wide net and attract anyone and everyone, your marketing becomes ineffective because it doesn’t resonate with any particular group of people.
When you go after every sale, including those from people who are not your target customers, nothing you say sticks or speaks to anyone. Therefore, no customer comes.
Rather than trying to get everyone’s attention, shift your focus to getting noticed by the right people. Prioritize your target customers and focus on marketing and selling to them. And even tailor what you sell and align all your business decisions to gain traction from your target customers.
Want to know how to stand out? Uncover the 3 biggest myths about finding your differentiation & how to identify it for your business.
brand direction & styling by us for Carolina Barton | photo by Comeplum
Mistake 9. Not knowing your “it” factor and differentiation
You don’t know what makes you stand out from everyone else and don’t have a clear selling point that attracts your target customers. This leads to vague and confusing marketing messages that don’t speak to anyone in particular, which results in low traffic and low conversion rate for all the marketing you do online.
As the founder of your business and the creator of what you do, you need to know what differentiates you from everyone else first before you can make people want what you sell. Figure out your marketing sweet spot that sets you apart. Check out this post on how to create your strong, unbeatable brand position and 7 pro tips to make your business stand out.
Mistake 10. Believing more followers means more sales
Many online business owners focus heavily on getting new followers assuming that when they have a large audience, sales will come. But having more followers does not mean you get more customers, especially when you don’t have a strategy in place to create desires and make people want to buy from you.
Instead of spending your time and energy on getting followers, focus on nurturing relationships, boosting engagement with the right audience, and making them want to buy what you sell.
Read this post to uncover the 5 secrets to connecting with your audience, boosting engagement & increase warm leads.
And check out this little-known secret to power up your marketing: emotional marketing (+ 10 ways to apply it in your business!).
Feeling confused about how to make people want what you sell? Here's a sales-psychology-backed, buzz-generating pre-launch content strategy.
Click here to unveil the 5-part framework to build a killer marketing funnel that works every time!
Do you make any of these mistakes? If you do, don’t worry. We learned several mistakes from experience, too. It’s never too late to fix them now so you can continue building and growing your dream business!
Still not sure where to start to take your business online? Start here and get these 6 tips to grow your audience fast from scratch with $0!
Works Cited
Silver, Don. “Why Are so Many Internet Start-Up's Failing Today?” Chris Ducker, 31 Oct. 2010, www.chrisducker.com/internet-business-failures/.