7 Common Mistakes Made By Women in Business...And How You Can Avoid Them

1. No written plan or specific goals
If you have no clear plan of what you need to achieve, how are you going to achieve it? Most business women have a general idea of what they would like to achieve but don't know how to get there. That's because they just have an overall goal, not specific goals.

You need to write everything down into a working document, a Success Plan is a great tool.
Set goals and actions that are SMART - specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed (90 day goals are best). Use a daily and weekly action plan so that you know what needs to be done

The more you write down in a usable format, the more you will achieve.

2. Insufficient Funds - Cashflow
Many small businesses fall into this trap and still fail despite making a profit. Why? Because they don't have sufficient cash flow. Analysing your cash flow on a regular basis will show you whether your daily activities (sales) generate sufficient cash to meet your obligations (expenditure). It will help you to forecast so that your business does not run out of cash. There is usually a period of time from when you pay out suppliers to the time money is received for sales, this is the period of time that you must have sufficient money available.

If you are just commencing your business make sure you have sufficient funds available to cover your set up costs and for the first few months of business whilst you are trying to make sales.

This is an area that is very often missed and yet it is one of the most important areas.

3. Lack of market analysis
You may think this is only important when you start a business; well the fact is you need to keep up to date with what is going on it the market on a regular basis otherwise you will be operating blindly. Keep abreast of what your competitors are doing. Many times I talk to people who are in business and yet have no idea even of who their competitors are.

Also find out about your customers. Who are they? What and why they purchase from you? This will help you to get more of the right type of customers.

This doesn't have to be a mammoth task but it does need to be thorough.

4. No time to work on developing the business.
As women in business we often get to busy doing the admin, accounts, quotes, packing orders, meeting contacts, organising advertising, answering the phone and the other hundred and one jobs that need to be done that there is never any time left to develop the business.

You need to document all the activities that you perform and then work out what tasks you can delegate, i.e. accounts to a bookkeeper. If you are trying to do tasks that you are no good at then get someone else to do it. Plan your days and weeks and only do what is in your plan.

Also think about how many sales/strategic alliances you could make if you could free up some of your time. This would certainly be more than what you pay someone else.

5. Limited financial controls and performance monitoring
If you think you can get away with not monitor the performance of your business, you are very wrong. Insufficient use of budgets, no proper weekly accounting and no monitoring of costs against sales means you are not in a position to determine how your business is doing. This is crucial, if you don't know how you are doing, how can you improve it and how are you going to stay in business.

Set up a working Budget. This will help you to know what the break-even point of your business is (this is how many sales you need to cover all your costs) and determine where your cash going. Review your accounts on a regular basis so that you can compare them against your budget.

6. Not testing and measuring your marketing
A common example of this is when a business spends a substantial amount of money on advertising without knowing how many sales they need to break-even or make a profit. They then find themselves spending more money on advertising and promoting the business than they recoup on sales.

Test, measure and monitor all your marketing activities, including free promotions, to see if it works to ensure you aren't wasting your money. This will tell you which promotions work and which don't.

7. Discard the myth that you can do it all yourself
As women in business we often do this but believe me you will pay a high price if you do. You will end up working more hours leaving you tired and fed up with your business. Get help from experts - use their knowledge to help you grow your business. Recruit a PR person, a bookkeeper, an admin person etc. Also ensure you have the good support network - family, friends and business group.

The information contained above is only an overview of business details that might need to be addressed. In business you need to take one step at a time so if your business is suffering due to any of the above mistakes you should take action to correct this.