Common Mistakes Business Owners Make And How You Can Avoid Them

In this week’s solo episode, I’m talking about the mistakes people might make when it comes to running their own their business. I want to use my experience and knowledge in the industry to help you see where you might be going wrong. Although you may not be making any of these mistakes, hopefully this episode will give you a chance to look at the way in which you run your business.KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTWhen it comes to branding it is 100% worth investing in a graphic designer. Although you can create graphics, logos and artwork yourself - the difference a designer can make is incredible.Your social media profile images need to make it clear who you are. Whether you’re using your logo, a product or a shop front – it needs to be as clear as possible so people can recognise you right away.Cover images are incredibly important when it comes to your social media profiles. You need to be sure you’re changing your cover photo with the seasons and that you make it clear what you do as a business. Canva is a great tool for this.Your ‘about’ section is not a CV. You need to tell people exactly what you do AND make it personal. What do your customers need to know?Giving away ‘free’ information is a great way to add value and to get your customers to trust you. Whether it’s a free guide or a podcast, the more trust you build the better.You don’t have to be on every single platform in order to succeed.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…It is important to remember that you can’t be all things to everyone. Whilst you can try new and interesting ideas, you don’t have to see everything through. Try not to make leaps that are ‘too big’.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSMistake #1 Business’ Don’t Invest in Branding - 02:41Mistake #2 Business’ Don’t Use the Correct Profile Image on Social Media - 09:00Mistake #3 Business’ Don’t Make the Most Out of a Cover Image – 12:32Mistake #4 Business’ Don’t Think About Their Bio and About Section – 14:44Mistake #5 Business’ Don’t Want to Share Their Information - 17:28Mistake #6 Business’ Spread Themselves Too Thin and Try to be too Widespread – 21:04Transcript below Speaker 1: (00:33) Hello and a super warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast and as always, I'm your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. How the devil are you? Okay. I've been doing some major batching and I feel like I'm on, I think I've done about four episodes of podcasts, so it gets to a point where I'm like, I don't know if I can talk to myself anymore in this room or it feels like I say the same thing over and over and it's not the content I'm saying over and over. The intro and the outro always feels like the same. So when I welcome you guys onto the podcast, I always feel like I'm saying the same thing and especially when you've just done four in a row, it definitely, definitely feels like that. Okay. So this week is a solo episode and this week I'm going to be talking about some of the mistakes I see people make, not just a social media majority social media, but some generally.Speaker 1: (01:27) And when I'm talking about businesses, I'm mainly talking about small businesses, although that actually this applies across the board to any size. But when I think about some of the examples in my head, it's tends to have been small businesses that I've been dealing with and basically this episode is coming out of a place of love. It's coming out of a place of take my experience and hopefully a bit of my knowledge and make sure that you're looking at what you guys do and just be conscious of, am I doing any of those things? Does it fit right for me or my business? And that's the other thing for me to say. Okay. When I come onto the podcast and I give my opinion, obviously it's based on many, many years of experience over 15 years now feels like, wow, I did it. It feels like less or more actually, it just sounds too many.Speaker 1: (02:14) And also having worked with thousands of businesses and seeing really good businesses do amazing things and seeing some businesses not so great doing dreadful things. So hopefully, although it's my opinion, it comes from a hopefully smart place. So I'm hoping you don't mind me going over these things, telling you the kind of mistakes that I see and ideally, hopefully you won't be making these mistakes. So let's get started straight off. Now I've given you like my caveat of please don't hate me for speaking so honestly about these things. Mistake #1 Business’ Don’t Invest in Branding (02:46) Okay, let's start with the first thing. One of the very first things I see small businesses do is they don't invest in their branding. Now I get it. Totally get it when you're starting your business. And if you heard my story about how I started my business, I'm going to link to that in the show notes.Speaker 1: (03:03) But I can tell you it wasn't all big money and investing and you know, people helping me out. It was very much on my own. No savings, no salary. Oh my word. I've got to pay my bills and my mortgage so I didn't have loads and loads of money to start with. So I totally get that. Sometimes when you're setting up, you've gotta be really cautious where you're, where you're spending your money. But for me without a doubt, spending your money on some branding is really, really important because this is the face of your business, whether you're going to be a shop, whether you are a service, whether you're a product, whatever it is that you're going to be. One of the things they're going to see first is your branding. And we all know about sort of what we like and what we dislike and what looks good and what doesn't look good.Speaker 1: (03:53) So let's take for instance like, Hey, the branding can affect your business and I'm going to use some big examples. One that I like to use all the time is supermarkets cause it's super, super easy. So let's take Asda versus Waitrose. So when you look at Asda, it's very bold, clear font, it's very in your face. They use prime colours because prime colours, bold fonts and for wrrds is very easy for everyone to understand. They, their branding is all around saving money. It's bright, bold, primary colours, which are attractive to people. They are very simple in their marketing and that's who they're trying to, as opposed to that's what they're trying to target. They're not trying to target simple people, I'm going to have a barrage of people going, I show up at Asda. What are you trying to say it about me?Speaker 1: (04:38) But basically this brand is trying to be more applicable to everybody. And then when you go into the store, it's big, it's bright, it's about saving money. It's about quick and efficient for children and families and busy people. Then you look at Waitrose and how you believe you are not in the U K so as there is, um, well I wouldn't even say it's a low end supermarket. I would just say it's a more family accessible supermarket. Probably cheaper, well not, not that much cheaper actually, but anyway, you get my drift. But Waitrose is our kind of whole foods. So if you're in the States, that's whole foods. I'm trying to think of what might be an example of what Asda might be. Well Asda is Walmart, so, but I don't know, if Walmart's the same anyway, you get my drift. Whereas Waitrose, the colours they use are not primary colours.Speaker 1: (05:22) They're much more subtle. They're much more muted. The font in which Waitrose is written in is not big bold, bright brush in your face. It's saying we're much classier than that. When you go into the store, it's not about price, it's not driven on, look, you can buy five of these for half the amount of money. It's driven on the quality of the food. It's driven on the welfare of the animals and the health and the taste of it and the experience. So those two brands know exactly who their audiences are and they...