3 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make

A high percentage of businesses are run by very enthusiastic entrepreneurs and the enthusiasm in many cases, overshadows logic. Very often, there are a few mistakes that are very common to different types of businesses.
1) Entrepreneurs tend to go into businesses because they are extremely excited by the idea and they seldom pay attention to the question;"Can I fulfil a need with this business?"
If you are not fulfilling a need, very likely people will not patronise your business. They need a compelling reason to come to your business.
2) Entrepreneurs tend to go into business because they see others making money from a particular service or product.
This does not always turn out to be profitable. Saturated markets are the hardest to penetrate and it can be frustrating especially for an entrepreneur with little or no business building experience. Here in St Vincent, many people open businesses that sell clothing. This is probably the most popular business that I see around and many of them are suffering because about 80% of them sell exactly the same items. Exclusivity in business usually wins. Whenever you stand out and people have a unique benefit of using your business, they will come. Take advantage of situations where you can differ from the crowd. In my opinion, the best application of this concept is in the XanGo company. The product is unique and the process is PATENTED so the EXCLUSIVITY will ensure that the company dominates the field of companies that may attempt to create a similar product in the long term.
3) Entrepreneurs tend to go into business and use generic names or simply some "concoction" of their first name with an apostrophe "s" at the tend. How can you stand out like this? Let's say your name is Lisa Schneider for example. You open a business and instantly decide to call it "Lisa's". A name can either make or break your business. Of course there are huge companies that have used this type of nomenclature very successfully such as Macy's but the business arena is so saturated, it's more beneficial nowadays to come up with a name that begins to tell the story of what your business offers. Payless Shoe Store instantly conveys the idea of affordable footwear. A small number of people who look at a newspaper ad and decide to visit the newly opened "Lisa's" will actually be converted to paying customers. On the other hand, if you were to open a "Payless Shoe Store", the people who see your ad in the paper and decide to visit, are already pre-qualified to purchase your product so a much higher percentage of visitors will actually be converted to customers.
Later on this week, I'll outline the advantages and disadvantages of podcasting and blogging.