I had consulting sessions with two new clients last week. One sells a very nice product aimed at parents; the other offers an excellent service targeted at businesswomen.
Both business owners are very talented women, and both have serious problems with their websites:
- The product site misses the mark in terms of target marketing, copywriting, product presentation, market positioning, look and feel; just about everything is wrong for the product. The entire front end of the website needs rebuilding, which can be done quite economically due to a short-term opportunity.
- The service website does a good job of presenting everything a prospective client needs to make a purchase decision, plus the site is gorgeous. What it lacks is a decent domain name, online market positioning, search engine optimization, and other fine-tuning to make the site nearly perfect.
Both websites have large, yet very different mistakes, similar only in the magnitude of the negative impact.
The product site owner has thrown all of her resources into back-end modifications that will do nothing to bring in new customers. She has a brief window of opportunity in which the site can be fixed for a bargain price, but she seems reluctant to go beyond the little she knows about online marketing.
The service website owner has some major and possibly expensive online marketing obstacles to overcome however; she’s aware of what she doesn’t know and is open to making changes that will help her business succeed. Even if it means moving into unfamiliar territory.
How does all of this relate to the title of this post?
One of the biggest advantages an entrepreneur has over a large corporation is in the mistake department.
Entrepreneurs have the ability to say, “OOOPS, I made a mistake” and then move on to fixing it. While most corporations are structured around the principles of avoiding mistakes and covering your tracks when a mistake is made.
A mistake can be the best thing that ever happens to an entrepreneur… if she or he has the courage to acknowledge the mistake and move on.
Entrepreneurs are risk takers by definition and by nature, so it always takes me by surprise when I meet one who is stuck at a mistake.
But then I’ve been an entrepreneur for more than twenty-five years. Maybe I should write a book about all the mistakes I’ve had to move beyond in order to keep succeeding.
Would a book like that be of interest to you? Do you know of any books by successful entrepreneurs that focus on the mistakes they made along the way?
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi, I want you to know that I find your blog really great. I am a website owner and feel that my visitors benefit when I read your blog.
D.K. you’ve got an amazing weblog here! Would you write some guest posts on my blog? Regards, Jarrard
Tough to find good opinions on blog sites so was happy to have found yours.
We’re very excited I discovered this blog page. My partner and I actually discovered u by accident when browsing for digital marketing on Bing, nonetheless thanks for the fantastic article.
I always was concerned about this topic and still am, thanks for putting it up.
How about sharing some of your entrepreneurial mistakes while you think about writing your book?
Okay, will do. Stay tuned for a post on my top-five business mistakes.