What stops businesses from succeeding?

All business owners hope that their ventures will be a success. Yet, while it’s certainly important to go into launching a new business with positivity and enthusiasm, it’s important to keep in mind that a significant portion of businesses do fail.

Indeed, the success rate is pretty sobering; around 50% of new businesses will close their doors within five years.

While there’s no way to guarantee success, there are things you can do that will increase your chances.

One of the best ways, for instance, is to avoid making the common errors that typically result in failure. In this article, we’ll look at some of the prevalent mistakes businesses make. Make sure you’re not making them!

Lack of market understanding

The actual business idea is only one small part of the equation. The rest is determined by a whole host of other factors, in particular the overall market.

People may love coffee, but if a new business is looking to open on a street that already has five coffee stores, then it’ll be unlikely to be successful. It’s essential to hit the sweet spot between demand, price, and competition. All in all, gathering as much market research as possible is key. 

Inefficient working practices

Many businesses would be successful — and more successful — if they reviewed their working practices.

All too often, you’ll find businesses wasting too much doing tasks that don’t necessarily add value or customers to their business. In many cases, businesses fail because of poor (or non-existent) management.

In this day and age, there’s a solution for every problem that you face, regardless of the industry that you operate in. If you’re a gas company, then gas engineer software that helps you to schedule jobs, handle invoices, and manage customers will help you to work more effectively.

But that’s just an example. The truth is that in the digital age, there’s always a tool or software that can come to the rescue.  

Untrained staff

Many businesses go to great lengths to ensure that they bring the best candidates on board. But once they’re on board, they do little to ensure that the new recruits can deliver their best work.

Staff training may not be the most exciting aspect of running a business, but it is important — without it, it’s impossible to offer the best possible service. Poor training can also lead to low staff morale, which results in high staff turnover, another big problem for businesses. The bottom line is that all companies need to invest in their staff.  

Marketing failure

Finally, there’s the matter of marketing. This has always been important for business success, but it’s arguably never been more essential than it is today, when competition is just so fierce.

To ensure that your brand gets the customers it deserves, it’s important to take a proactive approach to marketing.

This may involve thinking outside, assigning a great percentage of your budget to the task, or working with a digital marketing company to do the job for you.