Your Small Business, Are You Thinking Too Small?

One big problem many small business owners and new start up's run into is quite simply thinking too small. Quite often I have readers writing to me asking for help getting their business ideas off the ground. I also often hear from people who have run their small businesses into the ground. There are a few key areas where you can be thinking too small and doom your business to failure.

Niche Too Small

Is your chosen niche too small? Finding a small market to target with your business is key to success, however, sometimes people narrow their niche too much. While doggy dental products could be a wonderful niche (as almost any dog owner can attest) you could even narrow your focus down to a particular breed of dog (such as lap dogs) but going for one specific breed would be taking it too far.

Target Market Too Small

Is the market you are targeting too small? If you are looking only at one community or small geographic region then you may well doom your product to failure. It is far too easy to saturate a small market and it is far too easy for any marketing mistakes to end your campaign before it gets off the ground. In today's economy with the availability of global marketing you need to think big when you are planning your target market.

Budget Too Small

Do you have a sufficient budget? You do not need a million pound advertising budget but you should however have some seed money to get your business and its marketing campaign off the ground. It is possible to build a business from nothing but it is also much more difficult and you may find yourself making some mistakes that cost you a lot more down the road than putting a little money up front.

Having a superb product, soaring sales and stupendous customer service are undoubtedly some of the things which you will aspire to have in making a successful business. But all of this is irrelevant if you suffer a financial crisis. Without a sound stable financial position the slightest shock can be enough to send your business crashing to the ground.

Schedule Too Small

Is your schedule too small? Do you have enough time to devote to your business? Starting, running, and growing a business takes time. Some people get bogged down with the planning and dreaming stages and never really start their business. Other people start before they have completely planned everything and quickly get bogged down by unexpected difficulties. While others do everything right in the planning and start up but once the business is running they get overwhelmed by day-to-day business and never think about ways to improve and grow their business.

Mind Too Small

Is your mind too small? You need to open up your mind's eye to continually seek new opportunities to find new customers, to find new potential partners, to find new ideas for products, and to find new opportunities for marketing. Flexibility and adaptability are key to your survival in today's business climate and you always need to have new idea brewing to grow and expand your market and your business. This means raising your head up out of the trenches once in a while. Yes, you might need to dodge the occasional missile lobbed your way but this is the only way to see those opportunities heading your way.

If you do your best to avoid these not so small mistakes then you will be on your way to small business success.

Focus

If your business has been up and running for a while and you have great products and great services but are not getting the results you want, you may be too focused on your clients and not focused enough on yourself. Today I encourage you to revisit the vision you had of your business and ask yourself why you started your business in the first place. Now I want you to focus even more on what you want. What exactly do you want out of your business? Do you want more money? If so, how much? Write down a number. Do you want more flexible hours? If so, write out exactly the schedule you'd like. Do you want to change the world? If so, write out specifically how that would look.

Why all this focus on you? Because if you aren't absolutely clear on what you want, how are you going to know if you are successful? How are you going help your clients if you are not taking care of yourself as well. Maybe you need to be making $150,000 a year to provide your family with the life that you wanted. You want to send your kids to college. You want to retire while you are still active and in good health. Or maybe you want to just make an extra $20,000 a year working part time while you take care of your children until they are in school. Or perhaps your goal is to make a million dollars a year and live a really incredible life. Defining this is very important. Why?

Because what you want will shape your business. It will determine who your customers are and how you will help them. If you want $5,000,000 in sales, your products and methods are going to be a whole lot different than if you want $50,000 in sales. If you want to work only afternoons, that is going to shape your business as well. If you want to sell your business and retire in five years, that is going to affect your decisions as well. So right now, get out a paper and pen and get ready to write.

Did you get your pen and paper out? Answer the question, "What do I want out of my business?" Write in as much detail exactly what you want your business to give you. Be as specific as possible. Write as much as you can. Think income, lifestyle, schedule, partners, travel, location, employees. What exactly do you want? Throughout the week, add to this and revise it. Compare where you are right now to what you really want. How large is the gap? My next article will help you create this plan and narrow this gap.