Common Issues Businesses Experience In Year One
Every year, hundreds of new businesses open their doors. This includes online companies as well as brick and mortar businesses. If you are thinking about joining the fray, then it’s important to understand that it’s not usually smooth sailing.
Author:Gordon DickersonReviewer:Frazer PughJun 22, 20234.3K Shares123K Views
Every year, hundreds of new businessesopen their doors. This includes online companies as well as brick and mortar businesses. If you are thinking about joining the fray, then it’s important to understand that it’s not usually smooth sailing. Indeed, most businesses will fail or have serious issues in their first year. By being aware of some of the common issues, you can work to prevent them from taking down your own budding business.
Staying True To Your Mission
First, you may find it's a struggle to stay true to your missionand your original company objectives. Believe it or not, most businesses don’t simply open their doors with the single intention of achieving a profit. They have far loftier goals than this. They want to make sure that they are a force for good in the world and are giving something back. This mission can get lost, simply because there’s so much to focus on. That’s why you need to make sure that your mission is always at the heart of everything you do and has a clear place as part of your brand identity.
Growing Your Brand
Next, you should make sure that you are growing your brand each year on the market. If your business is stagnant for too long then it will be forgotten. However, this isn’t about getting new customers. Often it’s about keeping old customers loyal who then become major advocates for your business. Remember, their word of mouth will always be more significant and far more powerful compared with your direct marketing tactics.
Dodging Legal Pitfalls
You can certainly fall into legal pitfalls with your business in the first year. For instance, you might find that you struggle with issues related to personal injury claims in your business. If you are running an office company, it’s not uncommon for businesses to be inundated with PI claims. This might not be your fault specifically. However, you do need to be aware of your responsibilities as a business owner. Even if you are not running an office, you could still run into legal issues. For instance, you might find that you struggle with patent issues. This is why you must consider the legal problems that can be related to introducing a new product or service into the market. Getting Positive Reviews
Your business will live or die depending on whether you can gain reviews for your business. When you first enter the market, you won’t have any reviews. This means that you will be completed untested and as such, customers will have no reason to buy from your company. If you are worried about this, then we recommend that you think about asking for reviews from your customers. Even if you get negative reviews at first, this will show you key areas where you do need to make improvements if you want them to continue to use your service.
Keeping Costs At The Right Point
Another big problem that you can face with your business in the first year is keeping the costs at the right level that is manageable. On average it will cost about three thousand to run an online business for one year. A brick and mortar company comes with higher capital expenses. As such, you could be looking at spending as much as ten thousand. This is manageable as long as you have a solid revenuestream. However, you should still be exploring ways that you can reduce your costs as much as possible.
Attracting Investor Interest
If you want your business to be successful in the first year and indeed beyond this, then you need to make sure that you are thinking about how to attract the interest of investors. Fail to attract investors and you’ll quickly find that the capital streams dry up. The good news is that there are lots of ways that you can attract new investors to your business. For instance, you might want to think about attending a tradeshow. The big benefit of a tradeshow is that it’s a tremendous opportunity to push your business into the spotlight and ensure that you have the greatest chance of making waves.
Keeping The Supply Line Steady
It’s important to make sure that your supply line remains effective and dependable. If there are any issues with your supply line, then it will always lead to downtime in your business model. This can be catastrophic causing you to lose thousands in a relatively short period. One of the ways that you can do this is by making sure that you choose the right supplier early on in the life of your business. There are some great industrial suppliers like Clear Amber Shopwho provide an exceptional turnaround and will help you minimize disruption. It’s just a matter of completing the right level of research.
Setting Up An Effective Website
Another point to consider is making sure that you do set up an effective website that will be able to provide the benefits that you need. Your website is always going to be a fundamental part of your brand identity. If you don’t have the right website, then customers won’t be able to find your brand and they won’t care about it. You also won’t make the best first impression. That’s why you might want to consider hiring a professional web designer. They’ll create a website for you that fits with your business perfectly. Improving SEO
As well as ensuring that you get your website right, you also need to think in terms of SEO. Without the right SEO solution, your business is not going to rank online. If you don’t appear online, your business may as well not exist at all. There are countless ways to improve your SEO but there are also a lot of ways that you can get it wrong. Particularly, if you try and simplify this type of optimization too much. You need to be aware that SEO is an umbrella term that includes a lot of different parts and pieces. If you miss too many out, then you’re probably not going to see the results that you’re hoping for.
Employee Churn
Next, you should think about the issue of employee churn. It’s quite common for a lot of team members to abandon your business in the first year. This is a problem because if they are continuously leaving, you’re going to be continuously rehiring. That in turn will prevent progress while also causing your costs to climb through the roof. One of the ways that you can avoid this is by making sure that you have the right onboarding process in place. That way, you can get things right from day one and ensure that team members do feel as though they have a place in your business.
Competitors And Rivals
You could also struggle to break away from competitors and rivals that exist on the market who will be vying for the same customers and clients as you. If you are worried about this, then it’s all about making sure that you find your USP as quickly as possible. As soon as you identify the unique selling point of your business, you will be able to guarantee that they have a reason to choose to buy from you business over other possibilities.
Security Trouble
You might also find that you have issues trying to keep your business secure when you are running your business. For instance, you could find that your business is targeted by hackers. This is ridiculously common to the point where it can seem as though businesses are being targeted every few seconds. That’s why you need to make sure that you do have the right digital security solutions in place from day one.
Establishing A Culture
It’s important to establish a business culture when you are setting up your new company. Your culture will help to differentiate you from key competitors. It can also become a main selling point when you start working to attract individuals who can help take your business to new heights in the future. The trick is making sure that you set up a culture that fits well with your brand mission and your ideals. If it feels out of place or doesn’t tick the right boxes, then you will always struggle to run your business successfully.
Scaling
Finally, you need to make sure that you are aware of the issue of scaling when you are running your new business. Scaling simply means growing at a level that is manageable and using services or solutions that fit with the confinements of your business. For instance, you might be interested in using cloud solutions in your business model. The good news is that these are completely scalableto the point where they will fit the needs of any size of company.
We hope this helps you understand some of the challenges that you can experience in your business and the key steps that you need to take to avoid issues here. In doing so, you can keep your company on the right track in year one and far into the future.
Gordon Dickerson
Author
Frazer Pugh
Reviewer
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