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You’re doing to much and it’s hurting your business. Here’s how to refocus

Why doing too much is bad for business

I think most of us that create a business have a dream of being the next big thing. Our service or product reaches out across the world to every demographic. When bringing your business goals together, you have to consider what your marketing will look like and how you’ll appeal to everyone. This is much harder than just focusing on a niche market. You don’t want to get confused with this. If you do, you could spin your tires and spend your resources on business ideas or marketing efforts that simply don’t work.

The word to consider here is “focus.” If you’re a newbie in business, launch your first initiative where you can see a particular skill or a fit of your experience. The best positioning to be competitive with, in the least amount of risk and the greatest opportunity for return, is the magic recipe here. When you can bring these things together, you won’t have to work too hard to find the success you’re looking for.

Thus, one of my key messages to entrepreneurs, as a business advisor and angel investor, is “focus.” It is better to be known to do one thing exceptionally well than to do many things poorly.

Google has done a lot, but it’s best known for being an internet search bar. Amazon is still known for its books despite the fact they’ve branched out much more. Facebook is still known as a social media site for meeting up with friends, yet, it’s one of the top places to market a business.

So, in order to make more impact, the first rule of thumb here is to focus. Here are a few things you can do to help you with that.

Quantify a Problem, Highlight Your Solution

To focus, you’ll want to start by solving a problem. When you have a generic list, you’re going to do a lot more problem solving with some details you won’t even use. Customers only need one solution from you. Why work so hard to offer them many? Investors will want to see proof of the depth of your business. To do this, you can create a strategic plan for various phases that will capitalize on other problems you plan to unleash later.

Pick The Business Model You’re Able to Support

If you don’t have a lot of resources, you may want to sell strictly by e-commerce. However, it’s not easy to support retail; hiring a direct sales team may be the solution. Whatever model you choose, choose one. Suppose you’re going to create a subscription model for a repeatable revenue stream. In that case, you can’t also offer a full-purchase model. The business model you choose will determine how much cash-flow you can potentially receive, what you’ll need staff-wise, and the funding you will need.

Only Define Three to Five Goals/Priorities

You can’t remember and deliver dozens of goals and priorities all at the same time. This is surely going to cause you to lose focus and become ineffective. This becomes the problem when you tend to do too much; you can’t do anything well. Your goals should be very specific as opposed to broad. If you’re looking to end world hunger, that’s a hard goal to achieve and requires smaller steps. Just have a few defined goals and priorities. It will get you where you want to be much more effectively.

Limit Your Solution Scope and Supporting Features

Many of us entrepreneurs have lofty goals of creating products or services that will revolutionize the world or become household names. These are usually feature-rich products. The problem is that they take a lot of cash and time to develop. It is challenging to pivot them, and they are harder to use.

Consider this, whatever you create is never going to be what everyone needs. It will never be the perfect product. Focus on what your product can do, and don’t try to add more. It’s all about making a minimum viable product and then seeing how it works in the marketplace. Once it sees success, you can build from there.

Know who your competition is! To say it is big names like Coca Cola or Amazon probably isn’t realistic. It could be someone creating similar products in your state or country. If you can focus on businesses on your level, you can build a plan much more fluently. Also, make no mistake, even if it seems like you have no competition, you do!

Keep Solution Positioning Simple

If you position yourself as a high-end provider who charges a lot for services or products, you won’t be able to be a player in the commodity end of things. It’s going to confuse everyone who is working with you or looking to purchase from you. Know your position and stick firmly to it.

Single Channel Marketing

You have to have a budget for marketing, but you don’t want to spread it too thin across various channels. Just focus on one method at a time and measure the results methodically. Move on to the next platform or marketing method, and then compare what’s working best. When you have too many channels you’re using, it will essentially be the same as no marketing at all.

We hope you find these tips helpful in an effort to minimize how much you do. Focus is far more important. It will save you time and money while making your marketing more streamlined. This, in turn, will build a more sustainable company for the long term. It allows you to grow into more later. The important thing is getting off the ground, being seen, building the customer base, making sales, and moving on from there. Keep it simple in the beginning, and don’t try to do too much.

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Loraine Couturier
Staff writer: Loraine Couturier is a jet set writing chick from Canada that travels around the globe. Her writing and marketing skills are what keeps her eating exotic meals and jumping on planes. Loraine loves writing about pretty much anything and likes to pass on the knowledge she has to others. Visit her at https://www.facebook.com/jetsetwritingchick

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Staff writer: Loraine Couturier is a jet set writing chick from Canada that travels around the globe. Her writing and marketing skills are what keeps her eating exotic meals and jumping on planes. Loraine loves writing about pretty much anything and likes to pass on the knowledge she has to others. Visit her at https://www.facebook.com/jetsetwritingchick

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