My 3 Biggest Mistakes in Business – And Their Consequences

By Myriam Callegarin • December 21st, 2009

I’ve been an entrepreneur since 2002, when I founded MC XTEND International Business Development. I was so excited about my venture that I neglected a couple of things, simply because I did not realize how critical they would be.

Here are the 3 biggest mistakes I made when I started my business:

I wrote my Business Plan leaving several blanks (all unrelevant things, I thought)
I did not write a Marketing Plan (I had it all in my head!)
I never looked at my Business Plan again, and allowed my mental Marketing Plan to run here and there following the spur of the moment.

This had consequences

Every once in a while “great” opportunities arose, and I took many of them without evaluating whether they were truly in line with my business goals. As a result, some of them were “unfortunate”. I learnt from them, and moved forward.

Even so, I kept feeling stressed, and kept wondering what was wrong. I felt unfocused, and somehow kept missing the target. There were months in which my business was thriving, and yet I felt stressed.

This resulted in missing some other opportunities, either because I did not have the energy and time to grab them, or simply because I did not realize that they would be good for my business. So it also resulted in a loss of money.

I confess: It took me years to realize that my stress was caused by the lack of an effective Business and Marketing Plan!

Now you may say: “Boring…”

At least, that’s what I used to think. I never really liked the word “Planning”. That sounded so “strict”, and so “unflexible” to me.

Even when I read some great articles about Business or Marketing Plans, I thought “That’s interesting, I should do it.” But a few minutes later I had already forgotten about it.

Until I saw it from a different perspective

Let’s imagine you want to travel across Thailand and Cambodia. You’ve never been there before and you feel excited about it. What do you do next? I guess you would collect as much information as possible about the routes, the climate, possible vaccinations, the people, etc. Then you evaluate the best dates and organize the flight. It means you’re planning your trip. Maybe you plan everything in your head. In the end, it’s just a three-week holiday and you like feeling free.

Why does your Business deserve an effective plan?

If your business is your serious and main source of financial income, and you’ve got to feed yourself and your family with it, it deserves an effective plan that helps you:

build a well structured product or service range
focus your efforts on the activities that really matter
manage your time and other resources more effectively
become a reliable leader for your team
feel more relaxed
have more energy to respond professionally when opportunities arise
improve your work-life balance

What type of resistance have you been experiencing with writing a Business or Marketing Plan, if any?

“Procrastination was the main challenge in the beginning, as well as the lack of a realistic and detailed action plan. I also did not know where and how to start working on my goal, nor was I sure if my business idea was realistic. (…)
My business plan has been growing “almost on its own” and I am impressed about how far I have come in the last couple of months. And this was only possible because of Myriam’s professional guidance. Thank you, Myriam.”
Gabriele Feile
Pre-Entrepreneur :-)
Germany (formerly Dubai)

What could you do TODAY in order to complete your Business or Marketing Plan?