Ten biggest business mistakes that every entrepreneur should Avoid

Original link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/syed-balkhi/10-biggest-business-mista_b_7626978.html

When I started my first business, I made a lot of mistakes (everyone does). While mistakes is unavoidable, you can use the lessons learned by others to prevent them from taking. Now with over a decade on business, I see entrepreneurs making the same rookie mistakes over and over again, and I Recogni Ze them because I made them too. Here is the top rookie business mistakes this entrepreneurs make and how to avoid them.

Note:the numbering doesn ' t mean that one was more important than another.

1. Saving money on Professional Advice

Speaking from experience, trust me when I say this:there are nothing more expensive than a cheap lawyer or accountant!

When starting out, often we try to cut corners to save cost. which can is good in some cases, and not when it comes to professional advice.

Just because a lawyer is BAR certified or an accountant have a CPA, doesn ' t mean that they ' re experts in your field. Like anyone else, the good in a specialized niche, you should expect them to make a good living.

But this goes beyond just lawyers and accountants. I ' m a big believer in learning from the other people ' s experience. Why?

Because I have learnt the value of time.

When entering a new field, I always reach out to folks I believe to is industry experts and pay them for their time. If me paying someone $ per hour, helps me avoid making a $25,000 mistake or saves me ten hours of work, then it is an I Nvestment worth making as I saved myself a lot of time and money.

Clarity is a great service where can I get a hold of a lot of industry experts like Mark Cuban, Eric Ries, and of course me! (Syed Balkhi Clarity profile)

2. Blindly following Advice

Another common business mistake the new entrepreneurs make is blindly following advice (whether it's professional or from A friend who runs a business in another field).

While your should always get professional advice, it's important to being objective about it and put the advice in perspective of your business.

Just because you heard it from a expert, doesn ' t mean you should follow every single word of it.

Try to get multiple opinions and does your best to make an informed decision.

3. Falling in love with your product

When you create a product, you obviously has a bias towards it. You probably think it's the best on the market.

While that's probably great for your ego, it's important to don't lose sight of all the work that could is done to improve t He product.

At the same point, it's crucial that's fall in the trap of a perfection like I didn't with Optinmonster.

Finding a healthy balance between knowing when perfection was not needed and good would do can go long ways in your career.

4. Underestimating or ignoring the competition

While there are a lot of advice floating around on not being obsessed with your competition, which I agree with to a goo d extent, you should also not ignore the competition either.

Every business have competition, and not just from other businesses-sometimes the toughest competitor are you.

If you don't know why your business was better than your competitors ', or you're not conveying this message properly to yo ur customers, then you were going to lose the war.

5. Setting the right goals

A common business mistake which I see in even folks who's ve had businesses for years are not setting the right goals.

First step is to has a term of sets of goals-short and long.

Second and more important step are to do sure that your short term goals leads up to your long term goal (s).

When you get the second part wrong, you spend more time thinking and less time doing.

If your ratio of thinking-to-doing is anything less than 90% doing, then your goals was messed up.

6. Being Cheap About Marketing

When I talk with new entrepreneurs, it always surprises me how marketing are always a low priority in the list.

That's how you GET to more ($$$) sales!

Should always has a budget for marketing, and specially when you ' re a new business.

I think the reason why new entrepreneurs does not has a marketing budget is because they can ' t figure out the ROI.

This starts with proper tracking and reporting. If you know your audience and numbers, then it becomes easy to acquire new customers.

And in my book, acquiring customers are always a TOP priority.

7. Paying yourself a low salary

A very common business mistake the new entrepreneurs make is getting their salary wrong!

Often we tend to pay ourselves very low because we believe that it'll give us more capital for growth.

The downside of that was when you pay yourself low, and you were hoping on cashing the profits as distribution. This hurts the much needed separation between your savings and funds on your business account.

You still has to live and are full of surprises. It's better to pay yourself industry standard salary and keep a separate savings account, so you don ' t has to tap into bu Siness funds for your "personal emergencies".

8. Doing Everything Yourself

This was a common business mistake that many struggle with (both new and veterans)-trust me, I still struggle with it, BU T I ' m getting better.

The sooner learn to delegate, the better it'll be is for your business and mental health.

While it's tempting to design your own logos, do your own bookkeeping, run your own payroll, it's usually a bad idea.

Just because you can do it, doesn ' t mean your ' re good at it. And that's not a insult.

Even if you ' re good at it, you have to determine whether that's the best use of your time.

I ' m a big believer of outsourcing, and a big challenge there is to find the right contractor overseas. Recently while talking with an entrepreneur, she told me, she hired a person on elance who go through all the bids on Her elance projects and present she has the best options.

9. Choosing the wrong business partner

Choosing the wrong business partner are probably one of the worst business mistakes you can make. Trust me, I know.

At the same time, have a good business partnership can is very lucrative.

I have written a detailed article on what choose the right business partner where I share 7 tips that I learned overtime .

The most important tip I want your To know are let the lawyers do their job. Just like you don ' t perform your own open-heart surgery, you shouldn ' t craft your own partnership agreement.

It's a huge business decision, and you want to make sure that's the right it.

Overspending on flashy things

Overspending is a very common business mistake, a lot of small business owners make.

In my experience, it pays to being conservative in your spending until your business have a consistent track record of profits .

Some Common items that I see entrepreneurs go crazy on-business travel expenses from hotels to meals to drinks. You can easily reduce them. Same goes for fancy equipment, web hosting and software costs, office space, etc.

You should is wary of taking on Debt-as a new business owner you'll most certainly has a personal guarantee on The amount borrow from the bank. At all costs avoid business credit card debt.

These is just some of the top business mistakes I see new entrepreneurs make. Has the made any of the these business mistakes? Got a mistake so you see others making that I didn ' t list? Share them in the comments below.

Ten biggest business mistakes that every entrepreneur should Avoid