The purpose of every business is to sell something, whether it is a product, a service, or maybe both. When a company fails to fulfill this role, it could result in its downfall. After all, if you don’t make any money, you won’t be able to cover the costs involved in keeping a business up and running.
The closure of small businesses might seem like an uncommon occurrence, but it’s actually more likely your company will fail than thrive. However, that doesn’t mean you should give up. Instead, ensure that you don’t make any of these mistakes.
Neglecting your Marketing Strategy
When you take the chance that customers might stumble across your business, you’re going to struggle to generate a profit. That is unless you make an effort to get your name out there. For this reason, you must invest more time and money into planning and implementing effective marketing strategies. With today’s technology, this is possible even on the tightest of budgets. In fact, there are many different low-cost marketing ideas you could use to grow your business. For example, you can conduct a survey, offer seasonal promotions or host a free give away.
Targeting The Wrong Audience
It doesn’t matter how much money or time you spend on your marketing, if you target the wrong audience, it’s almost certain to fail. Rather than waste these vital resources, you should conduct market research to create an ideal customer profile. This should include every core characteristic of potential customers, such as their gender, age, average salary, location, and even lifestyle. With this information, you can ensure the right people see your ads.
A Complicated Checkout Process
Once a customer has decided to buy from you, it’s imperative that they can do so as soon as possible. After all, the longer or more complicated your checkout process, the more likely it will be that customers will abandon their carts. I’ve actually decided to not make a purchase because of this myself. You should also invest in credit card processing, or, for gas stations or retail shops, convenience store credit card processing. This additional payment method means customers can still shop with you even when they don’t have cash.
Lack Of Online Presence
These days, before most consumers buy a specific product, they will look it up online to find a store that sells it. This means, if you don’t have a business website or any online presence at all, these potential customers will have no way of finding you. Keeping that in mind, you should ensure you build a site for your business as soon as possible. Make sure it looks professional, represents your brand image, and includes details on how to contact your company.
Relying Solely On Technology
Technology has completely revolutionized the way we do business, allowing us to serve customers quickly and more efficiently than ever before. That being said, you shouldn’t rely on tech too much in your company. While some customers are happy receiving help from a chatbot, others would much rather speak to a human. To ensure you don’t lose these customers, you should provide ways for them to contact a real member of your team.
Incorrectly Pricing Your Products
Cost plays a big role in whether or not a customer buys your products. For this reason, you have to consider your prices carefully. If you go too high, customers will likely shop with someone cheaper. If you go too low, they’ll wonder why you’re so cheap, which could result in distrust. Pricing your products too low will also make it difficult for you to generate a profit. You need to try to find a middle ground that is affordable but also covers necessary costs.
Rivals Offer Better Alternatives
While price is definitely important, there are other factors that make up the value of a product, such as unique features. If you can’t afford to lower the cost of your goods, you should find ways to offer better value instead. With so many amazing things on the market these days, coming up with an entirely unique idea is difficult, if not impossible. However, you can find ways to match up to and even exceed your rivals. You just need to think outside the box.
Overlooking All Customer Feedback
Consumers have a lot to say, and although some of this is going to be useless to you, most of it won’t be. No one enjoys hearing criticism, especially about a business they’ve worked so hard to build. However, it’s necessary if you want to improve. With that in mind, you should stop overlooking your customer feedback and instead read and respond to it. Not only can this help to improve your products, but it also shows customers you care about what they have to say.
Unprofessional And Untrustworthy Image
Customers these days are very wary about being ripped off, especially when shopping online. For this reason, they are unlikely to buy from you if your website or business as a whole looks unprofessional. To build trust with your target market, you should provide an address and contact details on your company website. You should also post reviews from customers who have shopped with you in the past. You don’t have to have a formal dress code, but set a standard on how you want your staff to present themselves. You don’t want them to show up to work looking unkept and unapproachable. Oh, and you should also try to avoid any sort of scandals.
Little Need For It
Some business ideas are completely genius. While you may believe yours to be one of them, the unfortunate truth is that it might not be. If your company is outdated or plain useless, customers simply won’t buy from you. To ensure you have a sellable idea, you should speak to people you trust and ask them to offer their feedback. You should also conduct market research to see how similar products out there are doing.
If customers aren’t buying from your business, you can’t afford to ignore it. It may seem like a small financial loss to you, however, small losses could cost you your whole company in the long run. Hopefully, after reading the information above, you now have some idea of where you might be going wrong and how you can put it right. Here’s to YOUR success!
Carolyn R. Owens has over 25 years of proven experience and serves as a Career Strategist, Leadership and Life Coach. She is the Chairwoman and CEO of Infinity Coaching, Inc. where they help you up-level your skills so you can up-level your income. Infinity Coaching, Inc. provides one-on-one and group coaching, organizational training, personality assessments, and a signature program, the Infinity Coaching Inner Circle. Carolyn is certified to give both The Energy Leadership Index Assessment and Myers Briggs Type Indicator Assessment. You can find out more about both assessments and other products and services at https://infinitycoaching.net.
