Everyone’s allowed to make mistakes. They always happen, particularly if you are doing something for the first time. However, you should avoid making them whenever you can. Get prepared and you won’t have to learn your first entrepreneur lessons the hard way.
Play by the rules
You are too small to try and fool the system. Frankly, it takes too much effort and knowledge to even attempt doing it. Obey every law and regulation applicable to any of the aspects of your business. If you take your business seriously, you will do everything properly and not compromise your business from its very start. There are more important things to worry about.
Fight for your passion
If you are starting a business, you should do it for the right reason and the right way. You will have a greater momentum if you get the ball rolling out of passion and not for the sake or earning income. It will also help you define your mission and have a stronger message to send out to the public.
Time is precious
When you work for someone else, you do not typically take your work home. As a business owner, you do not have this luxury, particularly not in the beginning. There will be so many tasks and issues you will have to deal with personally, that you will wish for more hours in a day. This is something you will unfortunately never get, so make sure to focus and prioritize.
Delegate
When time is an issue, delegating is the first logical step. Fresh entrepreneurs often have trouble letting go of certain tasks. Subconsciously they believe that no one will be able to do the work as well as they would. This usually happens out of the passion for the new business. However, the only way they can help the business is by making sure everything gets done in a timely manner and save themselves from burning out.
Hiring the best people
Giving opportunity to everyone is nice, but do not hire the first person available. Get informed and find ways of locating the best people in the industry you can afford. Focus on recognizing talent. Apart from looking for the skills, look for people whose energy is similar to yours. You need someone compatible to work with. This way, you will find it less difficult to delegate.
Always deliver
Regardless of whether you are a B2C or B2B business, you should always stand by your word and deliver. You depend on the good opinion of your clients and your business partner. Maintain the same quality, try to please their requests, and never ever make a promise you cannot keep. There are no excuses, they do not need to hear that you are having a bad day, or that the things aren’t going so well.
Money management
It is imperative to take your finances seriously from the very beginning. Track all financial movements and all expenses. This is the only way you will be able to run a profitable business and take it to the next level. We have spoken to what we find are the best accountants in Sydney. They advised they had seen a number of fresh entrepreneurs and small business owners come for them for an advice only when things start looking really bad.
Statistics on the number of start-ups which fail within the first year are really scary. You need to shake this off and believe in what you are doing if you want to succeed. To save yourself from losses, learn from other people’s experiences and do not repeat the common mistakes.