Every entrepreneur can tell you stories about the mistakes they’ve made while running their business. Some fall for scams, others become complacent in their marketing, some may even choose a working style that makes them feel lonely from time to time. Here are some stories about mistakes and how to overcome them and move forward from members of the online small business community.
Look Out for the Shady Side of Social Media
Social media can provide so many wonderful things for businesses. But it can also be a common place to encounter fraud, especially when it comes to working with influencers. To avoid this major pitfall of the online world, check out some of the red flags included in this Content Marketing Institute post by Jodi Harris.
Learn How to Handle Business Struggles
Your business is going to struggle at some point — there’s no getting around it. So you might as well prepare for that inevitability by knowing the steps to take when those hard times arrive. Here, Erik Emanuelli shares some tips for dealing with struggles on the Biz Small Biz blog. And BizSugar members shared thoughts on the post here.
Adapt to the New Rules of Marketing
Marketing is not a stagnant concept. So your company’s strategy shouldn’t stay the same throughout the years. If you’ve been stuck in a marketing rut, check out this Marketing Land post by Scott Brinker to learn more about the “new” rules of marketing.
Combat Loneliness When Telecommuting
With so many small business owners working from home offices or other remote locations, loneliness can sometimes become an issue. There are some things you can do to combat this feeling and make running your day to day operations a more pleasant experience. Jamie Frayer elaborates in this post on Smallbiztechnology.com.
Find Your Own Career Path
Plenty of business owners and professionals struggle with finding their calling early on — or even well into their career. If you’re struggling to shape your business or career or find what it is that you really want to do moving forward, Holly Hanna of the Work at Home Woman can relate. Read her story here then see what BizSugar members are saying.
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Deploy Continuous Improvements for Your Business
Too many businesses fall into the trap of complacency or only moving forward when a major opportunity presents itself. Instead, you could consider making small but continuous improvements to reach success. In this Process Street post, Adam Henshall explores the concept of Kaizan and discusses how it can apply to a number of different business types.
Improve Your Click Through Rates with Emoji
If your business shies away from using newer communication tools like emoji in your marketing efforts, you could be missing out. For years, many thought of these little emoticons as unprofessional, but now more and more businesses are using them to improve click through rates. Learn more in this Quick Sprout post by Neil Patel.
Don’t Forget About Customer Service
As you work to grow your business, you cannot forget to take great care of your current customers. Service will always be a key factor that drives growth, as Peter Davidson argues in this Pixel Productions post. You can also see commentary from the BizSugar community here.
Learn All About Corporate Veils
When you start a business, you could be putting some of your personal assets at risk if you ever get into a legal dispute. A corporate veil can help to protect you personally in those cases. But there’s a lot that goes into this type of structure. Nellie Akalp explains more in this post on the CorpNet blog.
Make the Most of Your Business Phone
New technology has decreased the need for many businesses to use a dedicated business phone line on a daily basis. But you shouldn’t necessarily ignore this communication channel altogether. In this DIY Marketers post, Ellen Sluder discusses how you can make the most of your business phone number.
If you’d like to suggest your favorite small business content to be considered for an upcoming community roundup, please send your news tips to: sbtips@gmail.com.
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I love these tips! I’ve been playing around with emojis and figuring out which ones resonate best with my audience.
Thanks for mentioning my article on The Work at Home Woman — appreciate it ??
Great tips, thanks Annie!
I wanted to send an article for consideration but can’t get the email address from the link above. Would you be able to share the email address? Or I can be reached at daryna @ openphone.co
Thanks very much!
I think that failure is inevitable in businesses. You have to commit some mistakes in order to learn. That’s just the way it is.
Thanks for sharing these interesting tips!
Social media and mobile marketing are the key players when it comes to small business marketing. One should deploy these two to enhance the marketing efforts and achieve the desired goals to get the success.
Knowing these small business mistakes in advance will definitely help the owners in dealing with them. These ideas are insightful for all the small business owners, as they would assist the latter in having their thriving business.
Thanks Ann for the great advice.
I think that the comments on marketing are particularly apt. The playing field is changing on a regular basis and we need to adapt. A lot of the old rules are now obsolete and we need to embrace the new ones.
I also like your comment on social media, it is definitely a two edged sword and there is a dark side that you need to be aware of and you need to manage.
Thank you Ann for this great write-up.
When setting up any business, we should either expect to fail or succeed. In most cases, business failure does not necessarily mean failure in a true sense of it. Great business people see failures as an indicator to re-examine the business plan and strategies.
By the way, your ideas and so helpful. Thanks for sharing.