Sales and marketing are the engines of entrepreneurship, experts say. In this concluding series, Okechukwu Nnodim outlines additional errors often made by small business owners while marketing their products
It is a common thing to make mistake in business. However, too much of it or a costly mistake may run your venture aground. It is therefore important to understand the basics that are needed in business before taking the leap in starting one. As a small business owner, you are most probably pulling double-duty in order to tackle multiple job functions at the same time, including sales, marketing, business planning, finances, all of which may not be within your realm of expertise.
According to experts in entrepreneurship, the fewer mistakes made in business, the greater your chances of survival. They note that individuals who record series of mistakes, whether in sales, administration, marketing, customer relations or procurement, will run aground their ventures if care is not taken.
Notable among the decisions which an entrepreneur has to take in business is how to market his or her goods and services. Marketing, according to consultants, is a live wire of most businesses. Marketing therefore, should be done with wisdom and should not consume all your funds. In our last piece on this subject, some of the common marketing errors made by entrepreneurs include gambling instead of adequate planning, trying to brand, overspending on marketing, and being averse to risk. Below are additional mistakes to avoid, according to experts:
Outsourcing wrongly
Many entrepreneurs depend on consultants or other colleagues in order to efficiently run their businesses. This, according to experts, is wrong. Seasoned entrepreneurs and consultants say one of the fastest ways to develop your skills in a particularly challenging area is to learn from your mistakes or those of others. According to them, instead of outsource important positions in your firm to wrong individuals, it is better to develop your expertise in the areas in question. Experts say depending on others or making your business success or failure depend on your hired consultant's success or failure is another mistake often made by small business owners.
Many entrepreneurs forget that if the consultant they hired fails to perform a critical task, it's not only the consultant who fails. It is therefore important that you keep the critical things under control, and be sure of whom you choose as help in business. If you must get a consultant, try calling people and ask about his reliability and quality. Ask to see the consultant's prior work so as to know situations where they failed and be thorough. You must also communicate and align expectations. This can be achieved by coming up with a written agreement on costs, timelines, ownership of final results, and what those results will look like. It is also important to have a backup plan. The plan should state clearly what will happen when the consultant fails deliver.
Over relying on your personality
This is not to contradict the first point. However, you must realise that too much confidence in oneself may warrant unnoticeable errors by the individual. These little mistakes might be glaring to others, but might be an oversight to the entrepreneur in question. Experts say it is important to not rely solely on your personality and figure that you will market yourself. To access yourself, you should figure out if you have ever started something and not finished it? Relying on your personality will only lead to poor results, experts say.
Improper measurement
Another common error entrepreneurs make is failing to take proper measurement of what is required of a marketing programme before embarking on it. Experts say one of the major mistake entrepreneurs make is to complete a marketing programme and realise they have no idea if it worked or not, or how to improve it next time. What you would like to know about any marketing programme is how many people who became aware of you through that programme went on to eventually buy something as against the number of people who became aware of you through other more or less expensive methods. It is necessary that you take your time to prepare and remember, if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist.
According to professionals, you must understand what to measure and try to always measure the programme's linkage to sales. Do you really care about cost per person lured to your storefront… or per person who buys something from you? The best answer should the person who buys from you. Experts say you can build ways of measuring into your marketing programme. It could be by asking people to call you or by setting up a specific phone extension, email or add a special email alias. You can also change one variable or one aspect of your programme at a time, then repeat and re-measure. Did your sign not generate replies? Change the design or location, not both at once. Then take time to know which one works best.
Promoting nonexistent products
This is another mistake made by many entrepreneurs when marketing their businesses. A Senior Resource Person of the Lagos Business School and the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Universal Anchor Limited, Mr. Sesan Awonoiki, during an interview with this correspondent, says having marketing skills is not enough, but you have to be an expert in the ability to sell and market your products, especially if they are intangibles. Experts note that it is an error to over-market without business substance to back up your claims. Whether your products are intangibles or not, you must be able to back your claims any time. Never over-promise and under-deliver on your product or service, as this can permanently drive away customers. Strive to match customer expectations and product or service delivery. It doesn't matter if you are delivering a lot or a little, either way, customers are happy when they get slightly more than they expect. So give it to them, experts say.
To achieve this, you have to understand your customers, and what they value about your business. You should also sell what you have, not what you are planning to have. Let your customers understand how what you have today matches what they value. Experts further note that you should use vision presentations carefully, in a pre-thought-out way, to stall competition or explain why owning the current product is of more value than waiting.
