Running a business is a never-ending learning experience. As much as I’d love to say that I never made any mistakes, this is far from the truth. I have made more than my share, and will continue to in the future.
But if there is one thing I do have under control, it is the ability to reflect upon my failures so that I don’t make the same mistakes twice. As someone who runs an Internet business that sells E-Books, the following three discussion points were my three biggest mistakes since launching a company.
Hopefully passing on this knowledge can help others out there from making the same mistakes I did as a novice!
1. Be extremely weary of hiring overseas help.
If there is one mistake I wish more than anything I could take back, it would be hiring help overseas to perform SEO tasks.
The idea of cheap help is appealing to anyone. Workers overseas will charge us fractions of what we would pay for U.S. based help.
The problem is, how much can we really trust a complete stranger from another country?
I learned this the hard way.
In one situation, I not only received a penalty from Google due to a man I hired to work for me, but when I confronted him about it he threatened to destroy my website if I didn’t send him one hundred dollars! Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place. I either had to allow myself to be extorted or would have to risk my entire site being messed with!
My point is, hiring someone overseas can be effective for certain tasks in which not much trust is involved. But be careful whom you hire. The consequences may not be worth the money you are saving.
2. Make sure your profits come from many different avenues.
One of the biggest mistakes I made early on was relying exclusively on Google search results for sales. This was an absolutely terrible business plan.
When Google made updates in its algorithms, I saw my search results drop big time. This was incredibly unfair, as my site was very high quality, but Google does what it wants. Even though my website may not have deserved to drop in rankings, if I had a better business plan, it would not have been nearly as big a deal if I had different revenue streams.
Look into all means of advertising. Whether it is PPC, seeking affiliate help, or even grass roots advertising, one should always have multiple ways of generating income.
3. Focus on quality over quantity.
Running a business assures one thing: that we will always have a never-ending to-do list. The problem comes when we let our never-ending list get in the way of the quality of our work.
As my life got busier and busier, the quality of my work dropped at times. This will only hurt the business in the long run.
Whether we are writing articles, building links, interacting with customers, or doing any one of the million tasks most of us have to do every day, never let a busy schedule get in the way of how much quality help we are providing.
This will not only lead to lower sales in the long run, but will lead to what I call, “business burnout.”
Eventually our minds will crash and we will lose interest in our business.
Stay focused, keep the workload smaller, and focus on quality above quantity! If you find yourself doing too much, outside help is the way to go.
Joshua Pompey currently provides online dating advice to men all over the world. You can find tons of great advice by visiting his new website . Click for plenty of free articles, or click here to sign up for a free weekly newsletter, in addition to receiving two free chapters of his e-book, The REAL Online Game.
