Being a business man or woman is one of the hardest jobs in the world, and there is nothing as frustrating as a failed business.

Entrepreneurs are determined, bold, and competitive. Most of the times, they have the personal qualities they need to run a successful business, yet an astonishing 8 out of 10 small businesses fail every year?

You read that right – 8 out of 10 businesses fail every year. That’s massive!

Imagine investing your time, energy and money to setup a business with the hope of growing it into something big and possibly building it into an empire, only for you to wake up one day and realize you are out of business.

If 8 out of 10 businesses fail every year, it then means that a huge number of businesses will still fail this year. The question is would yours be among? You may say all the prayers now, and declare “God forbid”, but as good as prayer is, if you are making the same mistakes the owners of those failed businesses made, yours too will eventually fail.

In today’s market environment, there are certain factors that once they are absent in your business, you are setting yourself up for failure.

The marketplace is being more competitive, and to survive you must take certain steps and put some things in place.

But unfortunately, many small businesses in Nigeria keep making the same common mistakes others before them have made. As a business owner you must take steps to increase your chances of success and survival in the market by avoiding these simple but deadly mistakes.

1. Failure to Market Online

According to statistics, 81% of potential customers carry out research online about a company or business before they buy from them. In other words, majority of the people you are trying to sell your products to, are actually going online to search for you before they give you their money. So what happens when they search for you and you are not there?

This also means that since the customers are already looking for you online, it will be wise for you to make it easy for them to find you, by having a system where you sell your stuff online to them.

The truth is the world has gone digital, and Nigeria is not left out. Many Nigerians now do business online and go online to find out more about a company, so if you are not online to serve them you will miss out on their money to someone else.

With this, the relationship between online marketing and business survival becomes clearer – since 81% of your target customers will search for what they want online before they come to your shop or office, it then means that if you are not online, or do not have visibility online, those customers will not see you. In other words you keep losing customers until you go out of business.

You will agree with me that the lifeblood of any business is its customers, so what happens to one without customers?

2. Failure to Adapt to Market Changes

It is said that the constant thing in life is change. But it’s an irony to find people saying this and still holding on to the old conventional way of doing things in their industry.

If you believe that change is constant, then you should be willing and able to embrace change and adapt to it when you notice a new trend in your industry or field. The business environment is changing fast and competition is getting fierce so you must be ready to accept changes in the market and adapt to it.

One of the most impactful changes in the business world today is digital technology. The way customers relate with businesses, and the way marketing is done has been greatly changed by digital technology. What you need do as a business owner is embrace it and leverage on it to grow your business; else you will soon fade out of the market.

3. Inability to Track and Measure your Marketing Efforts

It is very difficult to track the outcome of conventional marketing; this is why businesses that rely on the usual traditional marketing methods of printing and distributing flyers on the streets, hanging banners by the road sides, pasting posters, and even radio and television adverts can’t really know the results they are getting from those marketing measures. How do you know how many people are coming to your shop because of the banners you hung on the road or flyers you distributed at the bus stop or in an eatery? You can’t know… it’s not measurable!

And since you can’t know the results you are getting from those marketing activities, you wouldn’t know the changes to make in your efforts in order to get better results. That’s the difference conventional and digital marketing.

When you use digital marketing to promote your enterprise, you can track and measure the outcome; you can have access to analysis and insights on who your customers are, who is buying, who is not buying, where to reach them and convince them to buy, etc.

Conventional marketing can’t give you these kind of information and details about your customers and potential customers, but we still find many business owners relying only on these avenues – flyers, banners, and radio ads to promote their business, which gives them very poor results which can’t be tracked or measured.

To get better results with your marketing you must adopt a media – digital marketing which is very measurable and highly impactful on your business.

As simple as these three factors discussed above look, they are responsible for the death of many small businesses in Nigeria today. The reason is not far fetched – they are all focused on one thing – The customer. Fixing them leads to attracting new customers, creating a better customer experience, and expanding your market reach.

You will be doing yourself and your business a lot of good when you take note of these factors and be sure to fix them in your business.

So my task for you today is that you take a look at your business right now and see if you are making these same mistakes. If you are, then you’ve got to fix it. Don’t say “I’m an expert; I know this business very well. I can’t fail”. Hmm! You should remember that businesses far bigger than yours have failed before.

So wisdom demands that you know these mistakes and then avoid them. Now you know them, the next thing to do is to fix them. But if you do otherwise, then you are setting yourself up for failure very soon.

Source: https://zizix.com.ng/why-your-business-may-fail/