5 Big Mistakes New Business Owners Make

Every business owner starts a new business believing in its potential and anticipating that hard work will lead to success. In reality, only 3% of people working hard ever experience success and there are a lot of hard workers in the other 97% too.

How you start your business plays a big role in how your story plays out. To give yourself the best chance to succeed, you must avoid making these five common startup mistakes.

MISTAKE #1: Not being clear about who you really are and why starting your own business is the right choice for you at this time in your life.

Everyone's life has a purpose. Are you clear on yours?

Starting your own business may have been your dream for a long time or it may be something you've just been thrown into due to changing life circumstances. Regardless of how you got here, congratulations on deciding to follow a new and exciting path!

Being a business owner can be a very rewarding experience, if you know who you are, what your strengths are, and why you went into business for yourself. To experience these rewards, you need a specific, detailed plan for making your dreams a reality.

The first critical step is to understand success is not something you achieve; it's something you are... every day, regardless of your life circumstances.

MISTAKE #2: Not being clear about what success looks like. What do you want and need to receive in exchange for the effort required to create and build your own business?

Building a business takes time and effort.

What success looks like is different for every person who starts a business. For some it is staying small and having more control and freedom, for others it is building a large business that employs many people and can possibly be run by others. For still others it is all about building a business, large or small, that can be sold for profit down the road.

Define what you need to take away, when all is said and done, to be fairly compensated for the time, effort and expense you'll have put into your business. Only then will you be ready to put together a strategic plan for getting where you want to go.

MISTAKE #3: Starting a business without having a strategy for building it over time so you are rewarded for your effort in a way that is deeply meaningful to you.

Every successful business needs a plan; not everyone knows how to go about putting such a plan together.

Your business plan supports your long-term goals so think about this aspect next. You may have many great ideas for products and services to offer through your business. But just bringing your ideas to life is not nearly enough.

Build it and they will come is a myth born in Hollywood; your business exists in the real world. There are many ways to enter a market and position a business for growth and each has unique requirements and challenges. What doesn't work is creating a product or service and expecting it to take on a life of its own.

Also, if you went into business because you wanted more freedom and then the business ends up owning you, it won't have served your higher purpose or better good well at all. Ultimately, you'll be left feeling unfulfilled in a way no amount of money can ever make up for.

Having a solid business strategy can keep you from ending up on an unproductive, painful path with a bitter outcome and more debt than you ever thought possible.

MISTAKE #4: Believing that building a strong brand is something only a big business needs to do.

The smaller your business, the more important a strong brand is to you. And, the stronger your brand, the more powerful and valuable your business is, regardless of its size. The tougher the economy or your competition, the greater the need to get this right if you want to be a success story.

Most people mistakenly believe a brand is your look, logo or tagline. Well-educated business owners know better. (And that's why they do better too.)

MISTAKE #5: Believing that the key to business success is nothing more than mastering the marketing.

A real business, whether it's an online or bricks-and-mortar entity, requires much more than great marketing. If you don't have all the other critical components working equally well, prepare yourself now because your business is doomed to failure and will be very short lived.

Despite what you may have seen and heard there's a lot more to it than customers, conversion and content. Marketing is important, but it's only the start of a critical relationship needed to fuel your business success.

Mistakes that guarantee startup failure are easily avoided by properly directing the thinking that goes into planning the new business before it is launched. If you are struggling with where to start, and aren't sure about how to best direct your thinking, work with a mentor or business coach on your front end planning to ensure you've put the basics in place. That's how great business success stories are created.