How do you grow your business? Is starting a business enough to make you feel accomplished? We all know that owning a small business can be empowering. Actually, owning a company that you have set up from scratch is more than empowering, it means taking full control of your professional life.
While that sounds very enticing, most of the time getting results can be intimidating. That is the reason why a number of entrepreneurs get stuck in and, in a way, refuse to grow. They seem to occupy their time with routine tasks, like endless paperwork, instead of focusing on activities that will increase their revenue, like market research, competitor observation, acquisition of new accounts, and streamlining of their offering to meet customer needs.
Although your one mission as a business owner is to constantly grow a profitable venture, you may be struggling to find motivation to keep you going through the hardest of times.
But how does that work?
To avoid the struggle of having to go through all that hard work, we find excuses as to why is it that we’re unable to grow a successful business on our own. Even in the light of the most appealing ideas, you will always have to battle the voice deep in your head constantly reminding you all the reasons why you can’t achieve your dream.
Avoid these excuses to grow your business
To help you deal with those unreasonable excuses, here’s a list of typical thought patterns that have prevented you from growing your business. In this article, you will also find recommended ways to move your business from stuck to growing again.
1. The “I’m bad with numbers” excuse
The times when you had to be mathematically savvy to manage a business have passed. Spreadsheets, invoice tools, account management tools will enable you to handle any business issue that requires you to use numbers.
Use a project tracking solution and billing tool to help you create recurring and auto-bill invoices, collect partial payments with just a few mouse clicks.
Work closely with an accountant to make sure you comply with laws and maintain your peace of mind.
2. The “nobody appreciates my silly ideas” excuse
Every startup company, digital or not, needs to have a strong social media following. Prove the world that your solutions and offerings ideas are worth their attention, get real Instagram followers, likes and engagement on all your posts about your services & products or brand.
You should be customer-focused and design a product that truly solves a pressing problem. You shouldn’t just create a solution in your mind; go out there and test it out by offering it to real people. Get their feedback and improve your product or service to a point that your customers will desire to use it.
3. The “I’m bad with words” excuse
Growing a business requires lots of good content. Writing is tough, no question there, but it definitely doesn’t have to be an excuse for your keeping away from crafting the future in business. If you need to produce sales or marketing material, there are tools, like Grammarly, that will help you find the right words to articulate your thoughts. It will help you keep your grammar correct and your paragraphs neat and tidy.
You may also want to consider hiring a content writer for blog posts and long-form content, like ebooks, or a copywriter for marketing collateral and sales copy.
4. The “I’m a fraud” excuse
Your success belongs to you; don’t let the so-called imposter syndrome make you feel like a fraud.
Imposter syndrome is a fascinating psychological phenomenon where people feel like they are not worthy of their accomplishments. Internally they feel like they don’t deserve success – they feel like a fraud, and they worry that one day somebody will find out that they are not good enough.
Entrepreneurs are among the largest groups of people to struggle with feelings of worth, self-esteem, and achievement.
To eliminate your imposter syndrome, you first need to recognize the signs. Then you need to remind yourself of your successes. Sometimes we forget that we deserve success and everything we have. If you know that you have imposter syndrome tendencies, start a journal to gather success reminders.
5. The “I can’t lose family time” excuse
You might be thinking, I have a family to focus on. A lot of people will use family time as an excuse to stick with a restrictive nine-to-five job that they despise. There is no given rule stating that you must quit quality time with your family if you want to become a successful entrepreneur.
The key is time management – if you manage to focus on essential business tasks that move your company forward, and keep in mind that quality time with your family is more important than long hours spent in front of the TV, then you’ll be able to both grow a successful business and be close to your spouse and kids. For example, you can wake up early and work on your business and save time in the evening and on weekends to spend with your family. Put the kids to bed at night and take care of some minor business issues for a few hours.
6. The “I lack marketing skills” excuse
Educating yourself is a major part of being an entrepreneur. Nobody knows how to be a founder before they start. And nobody knows how to grow their business with marketing before they realize they need to get the word out there.
If you want to grow your business and let go of excuses, you will have to get rid of this thought pattern and get started somewhere. Start with the social network that you feel most comfortable with. Then, add more marketing channels to your strategy. When the time is right, hire a marketing expert or growth hacker to plan out an effective marketing strategy for your small business.
7. The “I hate selling” excuse
Some are born with an intrinsic desire and talent to sell. They do exist- and typically enjoy very successful careers in sales- but these people are few and far between.
And by the way, you can now ‘steal’ our step-by-step process for streamlining sales and converting more leads into customers. Click here to get instant access to our free 5-part video course that will help you craft winning sales funnels without any expertise.
Now, if you’re like most of us, sales pitches, cold calling, meetings, and presentations don’t rank anywhere near the top of your “fun things to do” list. In fact, the idea of a sales presentation may be something that causes you to panic and you want to avoid at all costs.
Why is that? Well, there are a few reasons why you might hate selling.
- Negative connotations: Selling is equal to lies and deception.
- Lack of confidence. I will never be good at selling my product.
- Fear of rejection. People will know I’m selling and they will say ‘no’.
The solution to these fears is to reframe your mindset.
The first key to conquering a fear of sales is changing your mindset. You must stop looking at the old concept of sales as a way to manipulate people start realizing that selling actually helps people find and acquire the solution they need.
By reframing your mindset and getting more comfortable with the idea that your business isn’t to trick the customer into making a purchase decision, you’re liberated to focus on the real value you can provide to meet the customers’ needs.
8. The “I’m not innovative or creative enough” excuse
In the world of the internet and constant innovation, we are all worried that our ideas won’t be unique and interesting enough. However, you don’t really need to be a creative genius to grow a successful business. Certainly, you need to have an eye for aesthetics, and you can cultivate that by attending free or affordable online courses on Udemy.
Next, there are simple tools like Canva that allow you to create professional-looking designs for emails, blogs, and social media without being a designer.
And finally, you can hire a good designer to create your brand and add uniqueness to your marketing voice. Fiverr and Upwork are freelance marketplaces that offer what you need.
9. The “My product is just not good enough.” excuse
If a salesperson does not strongly believe in the worth of the product they are selling then it goes without saying that the sales process cannot be successful. Naturally, there’s the concept that a good salesperson can sell anything, however, we don’t think that success can last for long. If you can’t guarantee the quality of what you are selling, then how can you earn the trust of a prospect and convince them that you hold the solution to their problem?
Customers cannot be deceived really. They will instantly detect a salesperson who doesn’t genuinely believe in their product. What’s more, salespeople who can vouch for a product, require much less motivation to sell it because they are more enthusiastic about it. They are far less likely to find excuses and will do their best to offer their solution to as many customers as possible.
That was the belief of Zig Ziglar, who stated,
If you believe your product or service can fulfill a true need, it’s your moral obligation to sell it.
So, if you find yourself doubting about your product offering, then you most likely need to improve the product that you sell or change your business completely. But before you drop your product and look for something else to sell, make sure you don’t do it just because of a fear of selling.