Everybody makes mistakes, especially when starting something new. But when you’re starting your own business, big mistakes can be very costly — in money, time, and energy.
In order to help you avoid costly blunders in your own business, we asked nine of our AllBusiness Experts if they would share one major misstep they made when they were first getting their own businesses off the ground. Read on to learn from their mistakes!
Mistake #1: Hiring in a Hurry
“We once hired a person who just wasn’t a great fit for our company. This person had all the skills, said all the right things, and the work completed was spot on. However, there wasn’t a cultural fit, and that really made things difficult on everyone for a long while.
“Our team is primarily remote, and so that means that you really have to be comfortable working without someone watching over your shoulder. Therein lies the problem for someone who needs that sort of accountability. This employee did great work, but it was just too few and far between, and there were long periods of time where no work was being produced.
“While bad hires are inevitable for businesses, the mistake I made was trying too hard and too long to make it work, or to see if things would turn around on their own. I once heard someone smart say, “Be slow to hire and quick to fire.” I think we did the inverse in this case. It was a great learning experience for all involved, we parted on cordial terms, and all are better for the experience.”
–Brian Patterson, Partner, Go Fish Digital
Mistake #2: Taking On Projects I Didn’t Love
“The biggest mistake I’ve made — and repeated — as a storyteller and branding expert is taking on projects that didn’t fully capture my interest. I always had legitimate reasons (the money was good, the client was nice), but these factors never compensated for the fact that I was bored. And I’m never at my best — or near-best — when I’m bored.
“So, when I launched KOTAW Content Marketing in 2013, I included these words in our mission statement: We Don’t Brand Boring! We only take on projects we feel passionate about. We say no a lot. But, when we say yes, we really mean it.
“Clients deserve our passion as well as our talent. Now, I’m happy to say, we deliver both.”
–Katherine Kotaw, Founder, KOTAW Content Marketing
Mistake #3: Putting My Website in Outside Hands
“The biggest mistake I almost made was not self-hosting my own blog. It was tempting to use a free service like Blogger or WordPress or even rely on social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn to build my brand.
“The No. 1 reason why you should self-host your own blog is control. With all these free services you really don’t own your website or brand, they do. In any moment your business can be impacted due to an update, change in service, new design, or new platform they decide to roll out.
“By having a self-hosted blog I have complete control over my website, the design, its functionality, customization, and performance.”
–Marco Carbajo, Founder, Business Credit for Small Business
Mistake #4: Making Important Decisions Too Quickly
“Wow, after 30 plus years in business you would think that you can’t possibly make another mistake, but wait … you can. The lesson to be learned, however, is that from each mistake or near mistake something can be learned or made better. There is no need to look for blame or dwell on past mistakes. Look forward and determine what can be done in the future, so the past is not repeated.
“Mistakes I can remember were the result of making hasty decisions, not thoroughly thinking through all the aspects and future ramifications of a decision. My current motto is, ‘I might be right, or you might be right, or we both might be wrong.’ So, now I listen, think, decide, respond, and then take action. Making prudent business decisions means understanding that there is more than one opinion and more than one option to most situations. Hold off on hasty decisions. A little more time now can mean fewer headaches in the future.”
–Richard Weinberger, PhD, CPA, CEO of Association of Accredited Small Business Consultants (AASBC)
Mistake #5: Trying to Do It All
“Like many of our readers, I’m also an entrepreneur — I’m the founder of a Specialty Tax Consulting business. When I think about what the biggest ‘mistake’ that I’ve made in my own business is … well, the very first thing that comes to mind is trying to do way too much on my own, wearing too many hats and juggling too many balls. Like many new entrepreneurs — especially those of us whose business is funded entirely with cash receipts — it’s very easy to avoid expenses. I justified that I could do it all: the new client prospecting, the writing up of every single proposal, all the billing and collecting, and providing tax services to all my clients. In a way, you can say that continuing on this ‘do it all’ treadmill was a mistake because there’s only so much a person can do.
“But I’m an optimist, and I’d rather think of this as a ‘lesson learned’ instead of a mistake! I learned that instead of working harder and harder, I had to work smarter. I had to hire (and now have some wonderful people working with me), I had to figure out which projects made sense and which didn’t, I had to find ways to leverage other resources (many available at a reasonable cost), and I had to build referral alliances.
“If you’re just starting out, step back and be strategic, and realize early on that it’s simply impossible to do everything yourself for very long.”
–Sylvia Dion, Founder, PrietoDion Consulting Partners, LLC
Mistake #6: Hiring for Lack of Weakness Rather Than for Strength
“The biggest mistake I’ve made is hiring in a hurry. This usually happens when growing companies wait too long to start the hunt and hire quickly to take stress off of their current team. When this happens the company is only looking for someone who can cover the immediate need and tends to forget about important things like, ‘What else should this person be doing?’ ‘How will the role evolve as the company grows?’ ‘What personality traits should this person have in order to be happy here?’ When you hire in a hurry you also tend to rush the onboarding process to get the new employee producing as soon as possible. This causes a huge drop in productivity over the next few weeks or months, and adds stress to the new hire and the entire team.
“I’ve learned two big things as a result of these experiences: The first being that it is that it’s better to identify a need for additional help before it becomes a problem. Many business owners delay hiring to keep profit margins up and to maximize efficiency, but they don’t think about what happens when their team is overworked. Productivity and morale drop and the quality of the work being done suffers in a big way, which then leads to unhappy clients and a loss in revenue.
“The second thing I learned is that you should always hire for the strengths you need rather than a lack of weakness. Just because a person can do what you need them to do, doesn’t mean they’re going to be great at it. If you’re planning on growing your company, you need to be hiring people who can do their jobs better than anyone else.”
–Mike Bal, Director of Social and Content, Single Grain
Mistake #7: Failing to Delegate Work to My Employees
“Without a doubt, the biggest mistake I have made in my business is thinking I can do it all. When you care about a product or service so much, it’s essentially your ‘baby.’ You have a hard time trusting someone to treat it as well as you would. However, I soon found I was spreading myself too thin, and not being able to give a 100 percent of myself to anything, because I was giving small percentages to everything. I wasted a lot of time trying to figuring things out myself that through smart hiring could have been solved in half, if not less, the time. It’s hard to put a dollar value on your time. You might be thinking your saving money by trying to do something yourself, but it actually might end up being more expensive if you count the added hours it takes for you to personally accomplish the task.
“I learned quickly I was doing the business a disservice but not delegating. You have to learn to make hiring a priority and find people who are smarter than you, so you can trust they’ll take the best care of your baby and you’ll also learn something along the way. You’ll appreciate getting to put your entire self into a few things, and really give it 100 percent, while also having employees or contractors who make it their responsibility to give 100 percent to things you were once giving only a part of yourself.”
–Meredith Wood, Chief Community Officer, Funding Gates
Mistake #8: Not Making Sure Clients Were a Good Fit
“One of the biggest mistakes we made early on when we started our consulting business was taking on clients and projects we knew weren’t a good fit. We did this largely so we could pay the bills, but also because we were bad at saying no. So we strayed from our core competencies, took on work outside our skill set, and agreed to work with difficult clients with unreasonable expectations.
“Some of those engagements ended poorly (as we knew they would…) and it really bothered us. So we made a commitment to get better at qualifying prospects before they came in the door, and stop taking everything and anything that came our way because we knew it was better for the long-term health of the business.
“We now have a strong client roster, so we have the luxury of being discerning about whom we work with. If a prospective client doesn’t tick off all our check boxes, we generally pass. This way, we know it’s a good fit and we can deliver value. It’s a luxury we didn’t have when we first started. But frankly had we not gotten good at qualifying, we may not be in business today.”
–Ken Lyons, Co-Founder, Measured SEM
Mistake #9: Ignoring My Inner Voice
“My biggest mistake in business has been listening to everyone else’s advice and blindly following their example. Of course it’s smart to read other people’s experiences and listen to their advice, but there comes a time when you have to forge your own path. I had to learn to take the advice of the industry and mix it with my own desires and passions. If you ignore your inner voice and blindly follow someone else’s choices, you’ll end up more unhappy than ever (and I can say that from personal experience).”
–Carrie Smith, Founder, Careful Cents
What about you? Did you make a costly misstep when starting your business? And, more important, what did you learn from it? We’d love to hear about it! Share with us in the comment below.