Avoid These 7 Mistakes To Grow Your Business

Many people talk about the upside of entrepreneurship but let's be honest; this is some complicated stuff. It's not like you wave a magic wand, and everything's just incredible. And even when you get to a certain level, there's probably a greater chance that you fall back down, go back up again, and then fall, and then go back out again. 

Right?

So I want to talk about the seven mistakes I made that kept me broke and working over 60 hours per week.

1) Not prioritizing Lead Generation

Right off the bat, the first mistake I made was not prioritizing Lead Generation and undercharging.

Let me tell you a story. I had two clients. Client A had never made any lead generation efforts before we met, but their business was at 6-figures. They relied on referrals. They probably made a lot more than some of my other clients. In comparison, client B also depended on referrals but still made way less than client A. So if they both relied on referrals, what was the difference? 

It's the price that they charge for their service.

Before meeting me, both of these clients did zero lead generation, but one was drastically more successful just because they had a more expensive offer that removed more emotional or financial pain from their customers.

Ask yourself this honest question, does the price I charge for my product or service match the amount of pain I'm removing from my customer's life?

2) You need an accountability partner

My second mistake was that I did not have an accountability partner.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but your accountability partner in business as an entrepreneur is not the same as your life partner, spouse, best friend, brother, or mom. I remember thinking, "oh, I just need to hit up my family member, and they're going to encourage me, and then I'll feel better, and I'll just get motivated." But, unfortunately, there's no such thing as motivation.

We do things we don't want to do every day, and the people who continue to choose to do something they don't want to do every single day are the ones who succeed. Therefore, selecting the right accountability partner is not only essential but vital to your business's survival. 

3) investing in a high-ticket coaching program is too early

If the coaching program doesn't remove a 100,000, 20,000, 10,000, whatever the price of the program is worth directly and fast, you don't need it yet. You haven't graduated to a level where there's even enough pain to remove because that's why it works.

That's why the sales pitch sounds reasonable because, in the back of your mind, they've removed so much pain and made so much money for others. But you'll ask yourself, "why can't they do it for me?" That was a huge mistake I made. If you've never sold your digital product or offer, as I did initially, and you don't have an accountability partner, you have no business attending a high-ticket coaching program. 

Period.

4) A busy calendar does not equal business growth.

Having a busy calendar is not the same thing as business growth. There are plenty of people who, whenever you try to have a conversation with and schedule on their calendar, can't schedule until the next month, yet they're still broke.

It doesn't make sense. Why are you spending so much time and having a full calendar? 

It's either one of two things, and I made the same mistake in the past. Either you didn't know how to delegate on a tight budget, or you're a control freak or both. I understand that there are some things that you can only do at the level that you can do them. I get it. But the key to delegation is delegating things that don't need to be perfect but are often done.

5) Expensive software

The fifth mistake was buying expensive software before you have cash flow.

Until you get actual oxygen (lead generation and consistent sales) in the business, you do not need a thousand-dollar-a-month software. You do not need a fancy printer. Right now, your job is to keep expenses low, save enough, then reinvest.

6) Hiring the cheapest vendor or white label partner

Number six mistake, hiring the cheapest service providers. While some were good some were also not so good. This is why pre-vetting your vendors and learning their onboarding process is extremely important.

You can't be the cheapest and the best. If you're going to hire an employee that's not proficient enough to do the work without you telling them how to do their job, it is not even worth hiring them. The reason is that the amount of time you had to allocate to help them get to the finish line will cause you to waste $10,000 worth of your time when you could have spent that on lead generation. Hire the right fit. However, if you can't afford the right person yet, that's a risk you need to evaluate.

How will you convince others to sign up for your product or service and invest in you if you won't even invest in yourself? 

7) Paying for ads too soon

Finally the seventh mistake, Running Facebook ads before validating my offer and having real customers.

Trying to run a Facebook ad without customers and a proven offer is like trying to hop on an airplane as it is taking off from the runway. 

All these things are so stressful that the people you hire to run your ads will tell you the problem is yourself when they should have asked you if your offer is proven first.

I've been there, done that. You don't have to do that. If you want to close three solid clients, and I'm talking people that pay you $30,000 to $50,000, close them through organic outreach where they hand out. Then once you have a proven offer, put the case studies in your sales funnel. Try some ads, but don't come out of the game. Don't believe the guru. Without real case studies and a solid sales process, you will not sell a million dollars with your first sales funnel. It doesn't work like that.

The truth is that every entrepreneur on planet earth has a financing issue, a delegation issue, and a customer retention issue. You are not alone. I want you to take this seriously because if you listen to people who made the same mistakes, you're probably going to make, you can avoid them and help your team and clients avoid them.

Feel free to download this cheat sheet, keep it in your email, print it out, or do whatever you must, but I need you to avoid these seven mistakes.

Be well!

Download The 7 Mistakes Cheat Sheet

Related Article: https://www.allapproach.com/linkedin-marketing-blog/b/biggest-leadership-challenges

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