A Harvard research reveals that about 75% of startups eventually fail, even with proper venture funding, and some of them within the first ten years of the founding. There is no rocket science behind the reason- it is because the business isn’t able to attract and retain profitable customers. Even though there are many business models in the market, but there are some common mistakes every business owner makes. We bring you seven of the most important ones:
- Product is a misfit in the current market: No matter how good your sales and marketing team is, if your product doesn’t match the needs and necessities of the target audience, it will fail.
- Marketing Channel does not align with your business model: Channel refers to approach of promoting the product in the market. Depending on the business model and the product in question, your business will be a good fit for some channels and a bad fit for others. For example, organic search is a great for websites like Pinterest and Quora, but may not be a good option for e-commerce companies like Flipkart and Amazon.
- Salespeople are not well-trained: A company’s sales team plays a pivotal role in the success of the business with the company’s sales performance having a major effect on profits.
- Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn’t clear: Every member of your company should know the demographic and psychological makeup of an ideal customer. Understanding customer needsis at the centre of every successful business which persuades potential and existing customers. Optimizing the customer experience by knowing your customer’s needs and helping them in whichever way possible, helps build trust and earn customer retention.
- The prices are incompetent and impractical as per the market: No one will buy your product if they are getting the same quality or even better at a lower price. Your price strategy should make sense to your ICP and an economic buyer.
- Market education is inadequate: Is your target audience even aware of the existence of your business? If not, you may have to launch a market education campaign to tell people that you have a solution to their problem.
- The lead scoring team isn’t functioning properly: Lead scoring system is to determine what leads need to be sent over to the sales team. So, if your lead scoring team is inaccurate, that means that your sales team is not being sent qualified leads and therefore even the marketing team isn’t functioning aptly. The criteria for the lead scoring system should constantly be reviewed to ensure that the right leads are sent, while leads that are not a fit are kept for nurturing.
