mistakes businesses made in 2020

I do A LOT of small businesses consultations each year, and since it is the end of the year, I thought I would wrap-up with some common mistakes that you might wish to avoid making in 2021.

Too Much Dependence on Social Media

I have so many customers who just want more social media traffic, even though it has proven to not be the top source for converting into sales (it’s not even in the top three). But it also depends on the nature of your business.

If you run a blog, then yes, social media traffic is a very good thing for you. However, if you are running a shop, social media traffic can be hit or miss. A lot of the time when I’m analyzing a shop ‘s low conversion rate, I typically find that their top traffic source was from social media.

My Advice: I am not saying you don’t need social media, but if I wouldn’t focus 100% of my marketing efforts there.

Paying for Traffic

There are certain sites out there (that shall remain nameless) that will send you traffic if you pay for it. It’s FAKE traffic, just bots. I have seen it many times, stores showing me their stats whereby they got tens of thousands of visits in one month from this traffic source they paid for, and not one sale! Given the 1% rule, this is pretty much impossible. So it means it is not real traffic.

Besides being a waste of money, there are other reasons why you do not want fake traffic. If you sell on Amazon or Etsy, conversion rates play a factor in how your listings rank in search results. Your fake traffic hurts your conversion rate, so you are also hurting your SEO.

My Advice: This also takes me back to my point about social media. Too much social media traffic that doesn’t convert, will also hurt your SEO. So stop paying for fake traffic.

Not Pricing for Labor

The handmade business can be a tough one if you are the sole source of labor. I have spoken of this many times, but if you are not including your labor in your prices, you will find yourself working really hard to make little money.

In other words, taking one hour to make a product that you are going to sell for $15 is not a great business model, as you are essentially paying yourself $15 an hour less materials, less fees, less marketing costs, less packaging, less other business expenses.

You also have to think of the scalability. If you can only physically make ten $15 products a day, then 10 x $15 = $150 is the maximum daily revenue of your business, as you cannot sell more than you can make – and this is still gross, not net.

My Advice: Make sure you are pricing to make the net amount of money you want to make in one day, yet still be competitively priced.

Not Doing Anything Different

You know the expression of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? People do this with their business all the time. Have you been hesitant to run a sale? Do you fear spending money on advertising? Do you keep making products that just aren’t selling?

My Advice: If what you are doing isn’t working, it’s time to make some drastic changes and take a few risks, or expect more of the same lack of success in 2021.

Not Pivoting When Business Fell Off

It was a very difficult year for a lot of businesses due to COVID. But, as a business, you always have to be prepared for the unexpected and be willing to pivot quickly in a new direction.

For example, a lot of my clients who offer textiles did exactly this, and pivoted over to making face masks and found success as a result. Travel businesses were greatly impacted, so I saw clients pivoting to offering virtual travel experiences as one way to stay afloat. I also had clients that pivoted to teaching their craft (as opposed to using it to create products) to take advantage of the interest in Zoom learning.

My Advice: You have to be able to react quickly to sudden business changes and always have a plan B, C and D waiting in the wings.

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