There is little doubt that understanding what steps to take when starting a new business is important, but what about what steps to avoid? When first planting the idea of a new business, everything may seem simple and straightforward. However, like any seedling, there is a much richer backstory just underneath the straight, little stalk shooting out of the soil.
While traversing the Internet during a startup’s early days, moving back and forth to make the best decisions possible while avoiding mistakes can almost be seen as an intricate dance. For most entrepreneurs, the need for this dance never truly goes away, which is why understanding what to avoid in business is so significant.
1.Ignoring customers
Without customers, a business simply cannot survive for long. Failing to listen to customers’ needs and wants means that a business cannot provide any new products or services that will actually move and that desperately needed updates or changes to current products will go unnoticed.
2.Planning, but not doing
Recall those summers long ago when being off from school meant spending as much time at the community pool as possible. At nearly every pool, there seemed to be the same kid — the one who wanted to jump off of the diving board and who gave it great thought while gripping his or her toes to the slippery edge but who never seemed to actually move.
Customers want a product or service that has been carefully planned and executed, but they will not wait forever for a business to finally get the courage to jump into the deep end.
3.Neglecting the website
As an online business, your website is the only storefront with which customers will interact. Keeping an updated, streamlined and easy-to-navigate website can actually make customers feel happy when completing a purchase or just dropping by to see what is new. Far too many websites on the Internet can be a headache to deal with, and some consumers are willing to pay more to a different company if they can actually understand how the website works.
So, what is the commonality of these three things to avoid? Inaction. Life moves quickly on the Internet, and business and consumer trends can change in what seems like the blink of an eye. Seasoned entrepreneurs might assume that they are beyond the point of making such silly mistakes, but any business owner can easily fall victim to his or her own errors if he or she is not careful.
Other than the money saved on gas from cutting out long drives to and from a so-called “real” office, there is also another important financial incentive to a home office — a tax break.
Working from home is definitely on the rise, and the trend has been well noted by the Census Bureau. The current estimate of home offices in America is approximately 26 million. However, in years past, just over 3 million people actually claimed home office related deductions on their taxes.