Business mistakes I’ve made (and how to cure them) - Part One
Crap, I can’t believe I did that!
Over the past 3 years of being a college entrepreneur, I’ve made several business mistakes. Things that made me cringe when I look back on them.
Hopefully, you haven’t made these mistakes. If you have, I’ve found that there are still ways to correct them.
1. Forgetting about client satisfaction.
Sometimes, paying for something and getting it isn’t good enough. You need a client to go “Wow!” Why? So that they’ll know they made a good investment on you. Not only is it great for the client, it’s good for you too. They’ll brag to others about you, they’ll order again, etc.
There was a time that I didn’t really bother about giving clients some extras. After all, it’s only web content writing.
However, since I treated all my clients “no different from other people” when I was starting out, you can imagine that they treated me “no different from other web content writers”. So I was replaceable.
When I realized my mistake, this is what I did:
- I send New Year cards to most clients.
- If I find out their birthday, I greet them.
- I am available for online consultation via chat or Skype, whenever they have immediate concerns.
- I give them regular updates on how the work is doing. After all, most of the work is “behind the scenes”, not readily visible on the product itself.
Because of this, I get a higher rate of repeated orders, and there’s almost a safe assurance that the client will be loyal for a long period of time. I noticed that if you treat your client like they’re the most special client you have, they’ll treat you like the best merchant they’ve ever encountered!
2. Letting personal life affect business.
Your parents made a drastic financial move that ruined them. There’s a death in your family (could be the family pet you’ve had for 20 years). Your girlfriend dumped you. These things are bound to distract you and make you feel like you need to take some time apart from your business.
It happened to me in my first year as a student entrepreneur. I let it get to me, so I lost a lot of clients and credibility. Thankfully I was able to bounce back.
Similar incidents have happened later, but I was able to deal with them much better.
The solution: treat your business as if it’s the last great thing you have going for yourself. You’re allowed to take some time off, certainly, but at least notify your clients of the cause and let them know when they expect to hear from you. If there are deadlines you might miss, don’t be afraid to outsource the work and just take care of finalizing and submitting it to the client.
There are some things that are out of your control, and others which you can control. Focus on what elements you can control to lessen a dramatic event’s impact on your business.
3) Not setting a time limit for goals.
One thing I’ve learned in the last year: it’s not really a goal if you don’t have steps to get there, nor a time limit for each step. In other words, it will be an indefinitely postponed goal if there’s no deadline.
I noticed that so many personal and business projects are left undone just because I didn’t have a deadline for them. “Someday” isn’t a real deadline. The more you have a specific schedule for a goal, the more realistic it is for you to achieve it. Without these deadlines, most of my own projects were left in the backseat indefinitely, or they took over a year to accomplish.
If you want to keep moving forward, you need to set time limits for your goals. Always.
Have you had your own set of business mistakes? If so, how did you handle them?
Related Articles:
- Business mistakes I’ve made (and how to cure them) - Part Two
- My Biggest Business Mistake So Far
- Does Your Blog Make Your Business Look Stupid?
- 4 Figures Per Day Is Possible
- What to do if your business is a miserable failure
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[...] part one of this series, I explored 3 business mistakes I’ve made over my years as a student entrepreneur. They [...]