Oh, man! I can tell you all my mistakes as a business owner, and I am not sure if just one blog would be enough. Most of the time, entrepreneurs learn from trying and failing or succeeding. A lot of my successes stand on a pile of failures. There are common small business mistakes that a majority of owners make.

Some common failures are avoidable, though. I learned the hard way and wouldn’t want you to do the same. That’s why I share only 3 common mistakes we make as small business owners. You can start working on building success without 3 fewer failures to walk through.

3 Common Small Business Mistakes

Here are 3 common things small business owners make and how to avoid them.

Try to do everything by yourself.

Umm…I am guilty as charged here!

When I started my company, I couldn’t trust a single soul to help me with anything. No one could do it better than I could; at least, that’s what I thought. So, I did everything on my own. I learned about QuickBooks, developed systems, created my own recipes, did all the inventory ordering, hired and fired, trained, cleaned the kitchen all by myself, ran the register, and worked six days a week from dawn to dusk.

2 Things That Happen When You Do It All By Yourself

1. Burnout sets in quickly, and I learned how to avoid it the hard way. I talk more about burnout in this article. 5 Ways to Avoid Business Owner Burnout –
2. We can not grow by doing it ourselves. One person can only do so much until they have exhausted their resources and physical ability.

How can you stop doing it yourself?

Step 1: Offload things you do not like to do. These are the easiest things to stop doing by yourself.

Step 2: Let the professionals take care of the things you cannot do well because you only know so much and only have so much time to learn how to do.

Evaluate your situation and identify if you are making this common small business mistake.

Take advice from the wrong people.

Over eight years of building my company, I received advice from various people. I had to filter through all of it very carefully and learn to understand what advice I needed to accept and what advice was wrong.

Before you start taking the advice people give as truth, ask these questions:

If the advice is industry-specific, does this person know your industry? Do they have any experience in what they are telling you? I owned a food business, and I was given advice by people who had never run a food business.

If the advice is about finances, is this person leading a financially healthy lifestyle and something to prove their advice works? A man came to me and advised me to get a loan for my company. I learned that this man used to own a company recklessly spent his money, and closed down his company with nothing to show for it at the end of the day. Would I take his advice on money? No way!

Is their jealousy associated with the advice they are giving? Not everyone is happy for you and your success. People who are jealous will always have advice for everything you do. Nothing you are doing is right or even good enough. That person will advise you to change your entire company and find a reason why you should do that.

Not Making a Budget.

I really don’t like the word “budget,” so I am going to call it a Spending Plan. How do you plan to spend your money in your company? Do you have a plan to pay your bills and yourself? I hope you do!

When I started my company, my husband and I created a spending plan to determine how much money I needed to make to pay the bills, pay my team, and pay myself. I worked very diligently to make sure I made enough sales to cover all those costs.

The spending plan helped me understand where my money was going. It guided which part of the business plan I wanted to cut down on and where I had room to spend. This was a track record I could rely on because I had facts right in front of me.

Conclusion

These are the most common mistakes I have experienced and hear many small business owners make. If you can avoid any of them at any cost, please do. It will be worth it.