10 Business Lessons From The Entrepreneurial Trenches

Running a company and staying on top of the game could be difficult. Often, we make a lot of mistakes and we wish we had known better. Find out more about the top 10 mistakes we learnt from over the course of the last year! Attention! Read on and make sure you do not repeat them!

Hello gang! I hope the (cold) weather has not interfered with your productivity and you are currently on top of your game. If this is so, keep up the great work you have been doing. If you, however, are experiencing certain difficulties, it is high time you changed the way you run things. Transformations, however, should come from the very core of your organization and they should affect all the little cogs in your business machine. Moreover, they should not be parachuted or imposed. Changes have to be gradual, rather than abrupt. Most importantly, you should comprehend why such shifts are mandatory. Otherwise, you are just going to sugarcoat the harsh reality and continue wasting scarce resources. In that context, I hope you enjoyed my previous article on QR codes usage and found out why contemporary QR Codes practices are considered inefficient. If you still have not read it, please do so! You might find it useful! Now that I covered all the usual housekeeping items, it is time we focused on today’s topic. As I already promised you last time, our content rich menu would feature some starters on how to avoid making the mistakes we and some other entrepreneurs made over the course of the last year. Whereas the season of New Year’s resolutions has already drawn to an end, you might want to make a few commitments of your own after reading this article. Indeed, the types of business errors I will be briefly discussing are not so obvious to figure out on your own and it does take a little bit of experience and a bit of observation to identify them. As I already said, we have made some of these, we have seen others make them, so I just want to warn you against getting caught in the morass of problems, frustration, and possibly, insolvency. All you need to do to avoid the aforementioned problems is to read on.

Those of you who have subscribed to the feed that rocks already know that each and every article that comes out of the Rock & Code’s marketing kitchen is a reflection of a real-life situation we have encountered. This entry is no exception. Yet, it is more of an amalgam of both personal and vicarious experiences of ambitious young people, who have learnt what not to do in business the hard way. Indeed, there are plenty of business ‘do nots’. Yet, some of them are just not so easy to figure out. The following list contains the morals of a few of the less conspicuous errors that startup owners, fledgling entrepreneurs, and even some experienced businesses are prone to make. Read them carefully and if necessary, take notes!

• Debunk the myth of customer loyalty: Over the course of the last year, we realized that customer loyalty is an evasive concept. We all know how important it is, but if we turn it into a marketing goal, we risk falling easy prey to abusive customers or to clients in general. Why? Well, because at the end of the day customers are rational human beings and as such they tend to go for the lowest bidder on the market that is willing and/or able to solve their current problem. Nothing else, nothing more. We might be willing to make concessions and compromises, we might settle for a lower payment, we might over-deliver, and at the end, we might be unable to retain those precious clients of ours. Indeed, this happens to be the very paradox of trying to please customers. In fact, the Harvard Business Review, published a very interesting case study why we should really stop delighting customers. The authors of this analysis managed to prove that it does not really matter how overtly outstanding our customer practices are. When the job has been done, customers eventually go off the radar and some of them might even switch to our competitors. Overall, all people really require is to get a certain task accomplished. It appears that the rest of the business etiquette and marketing trappings do not really matter that much. Hence, do not waste extra time and energy trying to wow your customers. Such an exercise might prove to be futile. Nevertheless, try to do a great job.
• Do not trust generous promises and put your faith in watertight contracts: Yep, we still get those a lot. Most customers tend to make promises they are not interested in keeping to make you scale down or to convince you that you shoul give them certain bonuses. Whereas not every client is a crook, you should be really wary when somebody comes to you with such preposterous proposals. In our experience, 90% of the promises for long-term relationships never materialize. Hence, do not go down this road. If somebody values your work and he or she likes your approaches, they will keep using your products and/or services. They do not need to promise you anything in advance as it simply does not make any sense. Moreover, you should really aim at signing watertight contracts with clear terms and conditions especially the terms regarding contract termination. Sometimes, contracts get cancelled in the middle of a project because customers decide to discontinue the project. If you are the one drawing up the contract, make sure you include a liability clause in case clients have a sudden change of heart and they decide to drop the project you have been so painstakingly working on.
• Cut down on the freebies: This is one of the most valuable lessons we learnt over the course of the past business year. Leads and customers do stick around if you keep offering them freebies. Yet, once you announce you will be charging them or you will be asking for a fair renumeration in line with the efforts you are making, they vanish into thin air. No, it is not your ‘corporate greed’ that drove them away. You have just come across the so called brain-pickers. They come in all shapes and sizes and they are not difficult to spot. They just want more and more for free. Indeed, a brilliant article published by the Forbes might give you extra insights how to proceed if you end up in the hands of such business zombies. It is up to you to do what you think might help your organization but essentially, we have come to the conclusion that people who are in for a free ride are not really interested in establishing long-term, mutually beneficial relationships. When the free lunch is gone, so are they! Just take it from the Joker: ‘if you’re good at something, never do it for free!’
• Understand that not everything that glitters is gold: This one is a cliche. Yet, we found out the hard way this rule is very difficult to comply with. Moreover, it is almost impossible to apply in the business world. Nonetheless, you should. Before I confuse you any further, I need to point out that sometimes, you should be selective in the projects you undertake! Indeed, some of them are so messed up, so underpaid, and so extremely ambitious that overall, you would be happier if you decide not to participate in them. Whereas you might want to prove to the world what you are made of and you are willing to take certain risks, at the end of the day, you might be better off doing something else. While there should be a constant trickle of projects you have to be working on to build a solid and diverse portfolio and capture an important customer base, be selective and do not jump in the fire. Turn down proposals which dreamy fabric spells disaster and frustration.
• Surround yourselves with reliable partners, not with drinking buddies: We came to this dramatic conclusion quite quickly. When it comes to choosing business partners, always look for people who are at least a bit more ambitious and a bit smarter than you are! Those are the kind of people who can help you drive your organization forward. They might not be the best drinking buddies or the kind of people you usually hang out with, but after all, you are building a business, not starting a party house!

• Be confident: If you are running your own company and if you have decided to follow the rocky entrepreneurial road, you have to have faith in your own abilities. If you are too shy and if you get intimidated easily, learn how to overcome your weaknesses. You might not be the best developer, marketer, designer or sales person in the whole world, but do you think that at least 2/3 of your competitors are better than you are? Acknowledge your limitations but work on eliminating them by constantly improving your skills! Read a lot, apply the knowledge you have acquired, foster a severe appetite for success, and be confident! After all, if you do not believe in yourselves, who will?
• Do not get tangled in the webs of community initiatives: This is another lesson we have been having difficulties learning over the last couple of years. Whereas supporting community projects is a very respectable deed, sometimes those initiatives get in the way of your business. Before you realize it, you might be spending too much time and efforts on undertakings that are not related to your business ventures and you might be neglecting your duties as an entrepreneur. Moreover, there are always problems and irreconcilable conceptual differences among volunteers. Thus, when the push comes to shove, simply keep your participation to the bare minimum or abandon ship. Nobody can blame you for doing so. Besides, you have to make a living and you have a company to run. In other words, ‘Exit stage left.’
• Learn to stand your ground and nip conflicts in the bud: Unfortunately, handling conflicts is one of the most frustrating elements of the daily business routine. There is always someone who does not seem to be happy with something. While you have more important things to do and you do not have time for the idiosyncrasies of each and every fellow out there, sometimes, you need to take a stand and resolve certain issues before they turn into serious corporate disasters. Just place every event in the real-time context and start from there. If you have done something wrong, do not be afraid to go public and admit it. If somebody is trying to embarrass you, go ahead and tackle him. You do not need to live in fear for your brand and your customer base. Remember, early prevention is the best defense.

• Improve your marketing and engage your audience: Good marketing does make a difference. Indeed, we realized that by building a robust, content-rich website and by attempting to expand our promotional efforts on the mobile front, we were generating some buzz and we were getting found. Along came prospects. Before we realized it, leads and customers were knocking on our door. In that sense, do not forget to focus on your marketing endeavors and aim at improving them. Moreover, try to engage people, start discussions, share value-added information on the social media, and be aware of real-time marketing. It sounds ridiculous, but we have witnessed a lot of otherwise brilliant projects go down the toilet because of poor marketing. I have said it time and time again. Very few products and/or services market themselves. You do have to promote them if you want succeed. It is your chance to make it or break it.
• Do not play the lone ranger: This is one of the most important things we realized over the course of the past business year. Whereas running a business might be extremely overwhelming and those of you strapped for cash might have to juggle a few roles at the same time, try not to have too much on your plate! The more you are trying to handle everything yourself, the more it falls apart! No, it has nothing to do with the strength of your character, your business acumen or your organizational skills. It has, however, everything to do with time and focus. If you are not a one-man company and you have partners, feel free to delegate tasks to them and supervise the proper execution of assignments from time to time. Do not try to be in charge of everything. Control freaks rarely succeed. Instead, they pull others under. Therefore, do not play the lone ranger and have some faith in your partners or employees. Otherwise, you are in for a lot of trouble.

Well, that’s all folks! Those are the top ten lessons I wanted to share with you. I hope they can serve as a business compass and point you the direction to success. If you want more tips on how to make it in business, subscribe to the feed that rocks, follow us on Twitter, join us on Facebook, or add us on Google+. The proud owners of iOS devices can go ahead and download the Rock Steady Blog iOS app on the App Store for free! We think you will get experienced! Remember to stick around because in a week or so, I will be disproving the validity of Marshall McLuhan’s postulate that the medium is the message in the context of real-time marketing communications! It is will be strictly business-oriented with a very slight academic flavor. Reach you in a week!