It’s that time of year again! Haunted houses, ghosts, goblins, trick or treating, scary movies.
It’s fun to be scared when it’s your own choice. But getting scared when you were just minding your own business? Not so much…
In your business, putting off important things can come back to haunt you. So we put together a list of the top 5 things haunting business owners today that you can ward off with a little proactivity.
Mistake #1: Not Having a CRM (or not having a functioning one…)
A customer fills out a form on your website or calls in to ask for your services. Someone from your team chats with them and writes down some notes on piece of paper. The day gets busy, the paper sits out, no one calls them back, and you wonder why there’s this random piece of paper sitting out in the office. The customer gets tired of waiting and decides to call your competitor to get faster service.
No one wants to admit that this happens in their business, but it’s better to face the problem head on than pretend it doesn’t exist.
Now there’s no perfect CRM for every business, but you need to pick one that works for you and figure out how to:
- Add prospect and custom information
- Send emails to specific groups
- Filter contacts by relevant data
- And finally, track sales data for each customer
If you don’t have a system that you can do all of this with, you’re flying blind, like walking into a haunted house without a flashlight.
Mistake #2: Hiring Too Late (or too early)
It’s great when you have a ton of business flooding in until you can’t handle the workload and your customers start experiencing worse service because you can’t keep it together. Or maybe you’ve experienced the opposite scenario where you thought you were bringing on a lot of business, hiring another employee or two, and business took a dip and now you’re trying to make payroll.
Overextending yourself (either needing to work too much yourself or not having the finances to pay your staff) can spook the hell outta you when you find out nothing is as you expected.
You don’t need a 5 year or 10 year plan for your business. You may have no idea what kind of opportunities you may have that far out in advance. But have at least a 1 year plan for your company that maps out exactly what milestones you need to hit in order to bring on new team members. The last thing you want to do is get scared into hiring too late or too early and get haunted every day by financial worries or excessive work hours.
Mistake #3: Not Having the Right Documentation for Your Business
If you’re like a lot of business owners (especially small business owners), your focus is usually on making a profit and lining up your next business opportunities. But come tax season (and in general) you need to make sure that your business has the proper paperwork, licenses, and insurance to do business the right way otherwise you’re opening yourself up to all sorts of potential issues down the road.
If you don’t already have your LLC set up (yikes!) we can get your LLC set up online here. Our team treats you like more than just a number and can give you advice on other areas you might need help with when you’re setting up your business.
If you’re planning on doing business as a name other than what you have registered in your state, we can help you with that too! For all your business formation needs, make sure to work with our team. There are plenty of other services out there that can help you online, but check out our reviews and make the decision for yourself!
The only thing scarier than ghosts is finding out that you didn’t have your business set up the right way or that you didn’t have the right licensing or paperwork to do business in your industry!
Mistake #4: Thinking About Your Competitors Before Your Customers
It’s fun to be competitive. That’s why it’s easy to look at your competition and try to be just a little bit better than them instead of trying to turn your customers into raving fans. Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely a place for competition. But it’s a bad feeling when you think you’re doing better than your competition, but your customers aren’t happy because they’re not getting enough of your attention.
One moment you might be thinking everything’s great, then the next moment you’ve got a bad review jumping out at you from around a dark corner. Always place making your customers happy over trying to look better than others in your industry.
Mistake #5: Being Too Serious (stop being so scary!)
Sometimes you want to look like you mean business. But putting on a straight face and being too direct can scare off people that just wanted to get to know you before doing business.
There’s a fine line between being too approachable and too serious when you are meeting new potential clients or customers. But you can show them the results or product you’ve given your clients in the past without coming across like someone from the Addams family.
And you may want to think about the kind of vibe your website, social media, and other marketing is giving off as well. Does it look and feel corporate, distant, or standoffish? Or does it feel warm, inviting, and open?
And think about your reviews too. Do you have lots of happy customers leaving you 5 star reviews? Or do your online accounts look like a bit of a ghost town?
Conclusion
We’ve covered a lot of ground in just one article, but here are a few of the main takeaways to keep these mistakes from haunting your business:
- Be Proactive
- Have Plans in Key Business Areas and Stick to Them
- Be Inviting
- Have Your Paperwork “Ducks” in a Row
- Focus on Your Customers
Please reach out to us here, and don’t be AFRAID to ask for our help!