Starting a new business is never easy. With day-to-day operations occupying a founder’s time and energy, common issues may arise that can sap your resources. Throughout this article, we will cover some of the most common issues that may arise when starting a new business, including:
– Becoming overwhelmed with the workload
– Lack of accessibility for customers and clients
– Misjudging a market
– Lack of a complete business plan
Let’s begin.
Becoming Overwhelmed with Workload
It’s a common story that within the first months and years of a company’s founding, those involved will spend an inordinate amount of time smoothing out the rough edges of a business to make it a viable vendor to the public. This can lead to burnout, exhaustion, and a host of health problems as you and your staff handle the near-constant problems that will inevitably arise.
What’s the solution? Delegation
By distributing tasks to staff and trusting them to accomplish mission-critical tasks. This is a crucial component of starting a new business because, for most entrepreneurs, most organizations should have some autonomous nature to them regarding day-to-day operations and minute details of each project. As you’ll notice with established businesses, as the business scales, so does the amount of distribution of responsibility necessary to handle tasks. Therefore, it is up to you as the business owner to recognize when work becomes overwhelming and when it is necessary to start outsourcing work to subcontractors or hiring new employees.
Lack of Easy Accessibility for Customers and Clients
Once your business is up and running, businesses often forget that enabling customers the ability to access your organization is vital for success. This includes communicating via email, your social media presence, through online chat, and by getting business telephone numbers that can allow your customers the option to choose which method works best for them.
For example, if your business is located outside of the United States, you can use US phone numbers from qualified telecom service providers that offer virtual phone numbers to allow Americans to dial your phone numbers without encountering blockages from service providers or incurring exorbitant long distance fees when they are forced to dial outside of their service network.
The ultimate aim is to ensure that your business covers all forms of communication and accommodates the preferences of customers. Failure to do so can make your business a frustrating experience for customers seeking ease and efficiency, which may ultimately cause you to lose out on potential revenues streams.
Misjudging a Market
Doing your due diligence is incredibly important before dedicating your time to a business. And nowhere is this more important than having the data to judge the viability of your business gaining traction in new markets. Analytics are important to market research, where you can not only see how your competitors are handling customers, but also whether a market has enough potential to be worthwhile for your efforts. Even with the best advertising and products/service, you cannot create a demand when there is no demand in the first place.
Lack of a Complete Business Plan
Hopefully, before you ventured out on establishing your business, you created a proper business plan. Without a complete business plan to guide the course of your business, at least in the initial stages, you’ll be missing out on the many benefits that a business plan can offer, including:
– A specific focus on the mission and vision of your business
– Identification of common customer problems that your business intends to solve
– A well-defined target customer and market opportunities
– A general outline on how the business will run
– Realistic revenue predictions and operational costs
However, if haven’t created a full-fledged business plan, you can create one with the knowledge and experience that you’ve earned from starting your business. Above all, you want to be realistic about your goals while also leaving room for new developments and strategies that may occur. Flexibility is key and you’ll want to regularly refer to your business plan as new scenarios develop.
Author’s Bio: As an entrepreneur, Tom Senkus understands the challenges and issues that arise during the early days of creating a new business. For more information about Tom’s published work and list of writing services, visit his website at www.tomsenkuswriter.com.
