If you’ve never done it before, starting up a new business venture can bring on many sleepless nights worrying if you are doing things right and — sometimes even more importantly — if you’re doing something wrong. Making missteps is bound to happen in any business; you just want to be sure that those you make don’t cost you a lot of time or money to unravel. This is where having expert business legal advice can be priceless.
Here is a list of the top 10 mistakes entrepreneurs make so you can avoid them when building your own business:
- Hiring a good friend or family member. When it comes to hiring staff for your new business, competence is the most important attribute, not familiarity.
- Keeping rent as low as possible. While managing expenses is always an important part of new business start-up, choosing a location purely based on cost can be deadly for a retail business. Choose a location that provides the best opportunity to generate customers.
- Buying used equipment. Sometimes this works out all right, but more often than not, you will spend more money fixing used equipment than you would have spend buying new. Plus, it’s an added distraction that doesn’t contribute to sales.
- Underpricing. You need to price your product to make money, which is the reason you’re in business in the first place.
- Not spending on professional advice. There is nothing more expensive than a cheap lawyer or CPA. Seek out – and pay a reasonable fee—for the best possible legal and financial advice.
- Using your personal bank for business banking. Not every bank knows how to serve the small business customer (which means lending). If you’ve chosen a good accountant (see above), he or she can guide you to good SMB banks in your area.
- Borrowing blindly. Sometimes using borrowed money is a good idea – like borrowing to do things right — and sometimes it is not. You need to know the difference.
- Not measuring your marketing. You need to implement a tracking system that measures your marketing efforts; otherwise, you may be just throwing money at something that doesn’t bring customers in the door.
- Treating employees too fairly. Obviously, you need to treat your employees fairly. But don’t compound a hiring mistake with months of indecision – your business and your profits will suffer.
- Falling in love with your product or service. A wonderful product or service won’t make up for bad operational decisions.
Johnson Legal PC has extensive experience in providing legal guidance during the start-up phase of small organizations, as well as during the more mature periods of organizational growth that larger business and corporations face. Contact us to learn more about how a great corporate attorney can help your business thrive.
