Running a business seems like an awful lot of decisions, whether you like it or not. Do you want to hire staff or go it alone? Do you need to open a shop or work from home? What payment methods are you going to accept?
How are you going to balance work and life now that you’re your own boss? There are so many decisions that you’ll likely be struck down by decision fatigue sooner rather than later.
But we’re going to let you in on a secret. Many times, it’s the decisions you aren’t making that are letting you down and making life harder than it needs to be. Let’s look at a few of the more common ones to reveal a bit more.
Sticking to Cash Only
Not making a decision on introducing digital, mobile or other types of payment aside from cash is obviously going to seriously impact how much money you can make. Sure, cash is king, but it’s not the only option, especially in a digital world.
Imagine facing a customer at a market with heaps of products and you’re looking at an amazing sale, only for them to brandish their mobile device or card, and your only payment option is cash.
That smile will soon disappear as you put everything back and watch them walk away. You can rectify this by finding the right POS terminal and software that works for your business to help you grow and avoid missed opportunities because you didn’t get around to sorting this out.
Waiting Too Long To Increase Prices
It’s a balancing act for sure. Do you keep prices as they are and allow increased costs to eat into your profit, or increase the price?
And will customers be receptive to a price increase?
It’s only natural to be worried that raising prices will scare off customers, but if you’re struggling to make a profit, then you need to act fast and introduce a small increase so it’s not so drastic and build on this as you need to over time. Sure, the cheaper prices might attract more customers in the first stages, but the right people will pay for quality, and if you can offer them an exceptional product or service that is good value for money, they’ll be happy to pay the increased price.
Not Deciding on Marketing
If you’ve decided against or you’re not totally convinced about marketing because it feels too salesy or not like you, then this is going to be a decision that comes back to bite you. Whatever your reason is, you need to get over it.
You don’t need to be that brash, pushy company that annoys people and feels spammy; you can learn some subtle yet effective marketing strategies that can work for you and still send out messaging that yields results without being too in people’s faces or inboxes, as the case may be.
Sometimes the biggest risk in business is not making a decision. Whether you didn’t know it was a decision you needed to make or you were scared to commit, not doing anything is going to harm what you’re building and hurt you when you least expect it.