We’ve spent a lot of time exploring all the ways in which businesses can be grown, restructured, created, and so on. Similarly, there have been quite a few posts willing to explore common mistakes people might make due to a lack of knowledge on the topic or a misreading of situations. However, there is one type of mistake that has not been touched on by any other posts on this blog and I think it is important to shed some light on it. I’m talking, of course, about the errors that come as a result of well-intentioned and yet mistaken advice. Oftentimes, the people pushing this particular brand of advice aren’t even aware that they might cause your business problems further down the road. They’ve just heard the tips before and are simply sharing them with you without considering that the difficulty in tracking down the originator means that they’re not all that reliable.

One of the classic blunders of the novice businessman is, of course, hiring people you know: friends or past colleagues that you are already familiar with. The idea isn’t too bad, at least on the surface. By hiring them, you would already have a very good idea of their skills and weaknesses, which can make training easier and help you get a better understanding of how your team will work together. The problem is that most people misunderstand what this advice means. No matter how comfortable you’d feel with a staff made out entirely out of familiar individuals, you should always prioritise the skills and experience they bring to the team. It doesn’t matter how great of a copywriter your friend is if the business you’re running desperately needs a good accountant. Don’t mistake familiarity for usefulness.

This mistake is related to the kind of businesses people set up. You might have heard that it’s better to make your own market than to try and take on an already saturated field. This isn’t 100% factually true. The most important thing for any business is what they add to the industry that no one has thought of trying before. Think of social media, for example. Livejournal was a massively successful platform back in the early 2000s, but it has since been overtaken by Tumblr. Both of these offered the same kind of service, a personalised stream of posts and images but Tumblr’s innovative reblog function allowed it to skyrocket to the top of the most used social media sites in recent memory. Obviously, if you can’t figure out a way to make your coffee shop stand out then it is better to cut your losses before you end up raising funds you might not be able to pay back. But don’t let your dreams be dreams out of a fear of failing to grab a market share in an established field.

The final advice concerns the way you market yourself. We are well aware that it is becoming increasingly difficult to grow as an enterprise without that Holy Grail social media presence. But there is tendency amongst incipient businesses to underestimate just how much effort goes into the upkeep of accounts. Keep in mind that even if you curate the number of accounts to run in order to have a highly focused strategy, you will probably end up with a few of them. Even with cross-posting, that is quite a lot of work that goes into maintaining audience engagement. Factor this into your calculations when putting the finishing touches on your marketing plan.