6 Mistakes Beginner Entrepreneurs Make In The First Month
As a beginner entrepreneur, there are things you want to get right the second you start your journey. There are a few reasons why entrepreneurs and small-business owners fail when they hit the ground running and ways to avoid facing those same difficulties when you first start out.
1. Trying to learn everything there is to know in the first month (or in as little time as possible).
Whether you’re starting out as a blogger, just opened your small business, or signed up with an MLM, chances are, there is A LOT to learn in order for you to be considered a professional. Although your eagerness to rise up and gain success can be great motivation, it may lead to late nights watching webinar after webinar, doing training after training. You WILL burnout, and then you’ll want to quit.
The thing is, there is a HUGE bank of knowledge and skills in your niche you need to master, and you absolutely can NOT learn it overnight, or even a week, or even a month. Patience is key here! Lay down that AK 47 and stop approaching things with guns-blazing. With one foot in front of the other, you will master each necessary skill day by day.
Psst. The turtle wins the race in the end.
2. Overloading yourself with content building. Results in a burnout.
Once you get a handle on what you’re business is meant to do and why you’re doing it, it’s important to recognize the necessity of a social media presence. The problem entrepreneurs face with that is trying to master ALL social media platforms at once.
This is a BIG mistake! Why? Because each social media platform has its own orientation, a personality if you will. Instagram is more visual and quality oriented, so if you try to post 3–5 times a day, you will lose your audience’s interests. As for Twitter, it’s okay posting 3–5 times a day.
The best way to ease into mastering social media is focus on becoming a pro in one platform at a time. Once you feel comfortable with it, and believe you could do it in your sleep, THEN move to add another.
I’d probably recommend starting with Facebook first, since it’s beginner friendly, and you mostly have to have a Facebook login if you’re going to use any other tools later on.
3. Inconsistency.
Another big mistake entrepreneurs make is inconsistency, this happens as a result of making the above mistakes first. Overloading yourself makes it difficult to be consistent on social media/blogs/podcasts or whatever it is you’re doing.
If you pick one platform to master at a time, you’re more likely to be consistent with it. BUT, you do have to discipline yourself to actually be consistent. This self-discipline is good practice to the commitments you will probably have to inherit as you move further into the professional aspects of your business.
In the online world like blogs, having a clear and consistent schedule of postings will make sure your business retains an audience. As long as you keep their interest, your audience will gain momentum. This is the same for social media. It is important to post something EVEY DAY. YES, EVERY DAY.
If you skip a day, you will notice the consequences right off the bat. You will lose followers, profile visits will decrease and viewers will find someone else to tune into. Lucky for us, there are TONS of tools for entrepreneurs and marketers to use to schedule and post our content on social medias and blogs AHEAD of time.
Some of these tools include:
- CoSchdule
- Later.com
- Hootsuite
- Trello
4. No foundation first.
The most important question you need to ask yourself as an entrepreneur is WHY. Why are you doing this? What is the purpose of your business? This may seem like a silly question to ask, but it is important because it will act as a mission statement and set the kind of path you want to take your business.
Understanding your business’s mission is what is going to set you apart from the crowded marketplace. Write down your business’s mission statement, your WHY, and at least 3 goals:
- Short term: What you want to complete within the first year of starting your business
- Short term: What you wish to accomplish within the first 3–5 years of starting your business
- Long term: What you want to have completed after 10+ years of starting your business
It helps entrepreneurs to write these statements down to visualize the goals. I have a custom template to write down your mission statement and your three goals which you can find here. Put this in a place where you will see it every day to stay motivated!
5. Using someone else’s tools instead of the right tools from the beginning.
When it comes to your training and research, you will begin collaborating with other entrepreneurs. One thing you will quickly notice is they all have their own ways of handling and processing their business.
There is no one right way to direct your business. I repeat. There is no ONE right way to direct your business. Just like everyone uses iPhones or Andoid’s, entrepreneurs have their own preferences when it comes to tools. There are COUNTLESS amounts of tools out there designed to help you succeed.
Some entrepreneurs have created their own, even! The only way to know which ones work for you, it to try them out. If one tool doesn’t feel comfortable after a certain successful entrepreneur referred it to you, that DOES NOT mean you are doing something wrong. It just means that particular tool isn’t right for you business. And that’s OKAY!
For example, I was using Later.com to make my social media posts, which is great IN MY OPINION, for beginner entrepreneurs. It is VERY user-friendly, and lays out all my posts to multiple social medias which will automatically post them at my chosen date and time.
Now, I feel I have outgrown it a little, and have since discovered CoSchedule, which cooperates with my WordPress in a way that Later.com cannot. But the thing is, I got comfortable with Later.com, got my use out of it, and then found a better software more suited for my growing needs.
As long as you:
- Be consistent with your posting
- Only master one thing at a time
- Be comfortable with whatever tools you are using
you will be on a successful entrepreneur path!
6. Burning through your contacts without proper set-up.
Recruiting is a big part of business when you get to that level of advancement. There will come a time when you need a team of people for reasons like
- You’re in an MLM and you have to recruit others to make the BIG bucks
- Your business has gotten so big, you cannot run it on your own
- Your business requires more people in order to be successful
Whatever the case is, the most important thing to remember is, like the rest of this article, PACE YOURSELF.
DO NOT burn through your contacts without making sure you’ve avoided all the common mistakes above and here’s why:
1. If you’ve burned out by the time you reach out to people, they’ve likely already seen the toll it’s taken on you. If you approach people asking them to join a business that has burned you out, they will probably not want to join. People do not want to sign up to be in a business they know will be exhausting.
2. If you have not yet figured out your mission statement, or have not CLEARLY lain out the WHY and the dynamics/goals of your business, then how do you think you will be able to approach people and propose your business opportunity? That’s that first question they will ask you. What is your business meant to do and why should I be a part of it?
If the leader of your business (you) has a clear reason why your business is doing what it’s doing, and where it’s going, then so will your team.
3. You need to have a clear understanding of WHO you are contacting and HOW to talk to them properly. Persuasion is an art. If you dial up your friend Joe, and he’s got a family of five, and you start talking about how your business will help him be more independent, he’s probably not going to be interested in joining your team. If you know your audience before you pick up the phone or email, you will be far more likely to gain the recruits you need!
Thank you so much for reading!
Originally Published on Medium.com by Lauren McDaniel
